Introducing myself
Hello there! I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject. I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil. My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc. I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death? Best regards, Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further ( http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person. One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity. Hope this information is helpful to you, Warmly Nishant On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos < marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello there!
I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject.
I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil.
My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc.
I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death?
Best regards,
Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376
Hello, Nishant! Thank you very much for your message and the link for your article. It seems like something close to what happens in Brazil, although maybe there are some differences. I have a question that maybe you'll be able to answer. The two youngsters who died still receive many scraps on Orkut. I guess it may be due to the high publicity that their cases achieved, and also because their deaths are somehow linked to their Orkut use. Do you notice that it happens also with people whose death wasn't on the media? I ask it because in Brazil dead people's profiles in general keep receiving scraps, even if they weren't published by the media. In these cases, we can see friends and family writing often. In the scraps, they write about how they're missing the deceased person, they "talk" about their memories and also they tell them about things happening on their everyday. The scraps don't seem like tributes, they're very personal and emotive. The fake profiles are something that also happen in Brazil. It's common to see fake profiles when the death's a result of murder or other brutal crime, and often when it gains a huge space on the news. I must add that people don't clone just the deceased person's profile, but also the murderer's one, in some cases. We had last year a brutal crime that resulted in the death of a little girl, who was supposedly killed by her own father. The father's profile on Orkut was cloned by so many people that we cannot tell which one is the real one. Actually I searched the 2 teenagers from India profiles, and I think I just found the fake ones. Do you know which are the real ones? I think it would be interesting to have a look on them. I'm also very interested on the chapter of your thesis concerned these 2 deaths. I'd be very thankful if you could send it to me! Thank you very much for your information! Best, Mariana PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil ----- Original Message ----- From: Nishant Shah To: Mariana Matos Cc: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Sent: Friday, July 03, 2009 4:27 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] Introducing myself Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person. One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity. Hope this information is helpful to you, Warmly Nishant On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos <marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote: Hello there! I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject. I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil. My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc. I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death? Best regards, Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376
Hi Mariana and everybody, I'm a recently graduated student of anthropology from Finland and I have witnessed the same phenomena here too. It seems to be a natural response for the people left behind since a blog or a webpage or a profile seems to have this sense of personality, e.g. the personality of the deceased. In the same way people leave candles and memorial artefacts to locations where a person had died or used to live. People seem to think that we leave a hint of ourselves in places, also in virtual space. This phenomena includes official memorial websites and virtual graveyards (which I'm studying currently for my doctorate thesis) that have been flourishing since 1995. I did my master's thesis about virtual memorial sites, their public/private aspects and conceptualizing virtual space experience. Death rituals (mourning, bereavement and honoring the deceased) are changing with Internet and social networking, and they seem to give a new way of coping with loss and sorrow. Unfortunately my work is still in progress and my master's thesis is still only in Finnish (will get it translated soon), but hopefully this remark has been helpful to you. Best, Anna Haverinen 2009/7/3 Nishant Shah <itsnishant@gmail.com>
Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further ( http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person.
One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity.
Hope this information is helpful to you,
Warmly Nishant
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos < marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello there!
I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject.
I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil.
My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc.
I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death?
Best regards,
Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hi Anna & Marianna etc. I agree network gives possibilities for showing the sorrow in a new way. But I have to point out that there still are kind of several generations acting in the web. Death that happened personally close to me left there for example a facebook profile of the deceased that wasn´t to be formulated to any memorial website or virtual graveyard. It was lacking almost all that even though the deceased was very well known and had several contacts etc. I wrote privately to Marianna about it. I don´t know if it´s due to age of the persons near the deceased or is it due to sorrowing habits we have here in Finland and the stereotype of not showing deep feelings in public. I don´t know, but like I said to Marianna, this is very interesting research area. Anne Holappa, cultural anthropologist, Finland Lainaus Anna Haverinen <aehaverinen@gmail.com>:
Hi Mariana and everybody, I'm a recently graduated student of anthropology from Finland and I have witnessed the same phenomena here too. It seems to be a natural response for the people left behind since a blog or a webpage or a profile seems to have this sense of personality, e.g. the personality of the deceased. In the same way people leave candles and memorial artefacts to locations where a person had died or used to live. People seem to think that we leave a hint of ourselves in places, also in virtual space. This phenomena includes official memorial websites and virtual graveyards (which I'm studying currently for my doctorate thesis) that have been flourishing since 1995. I did my master's thesis about virtual memorial sites, their public/private aspects and conceptualizing virtual space experience. Death rituals (mourning, bereavement and honoring the deceased) are changing with Internet and social networking, and they seem to give a new way of coping with loss and sorrow.
Unfortunately my work is still in progress and my master's thesis is still only in Finnish (will get it translated soon), but hopefully this remark has been helpful to you.
Best, Anna Haverinen
2009/7/3 Nishant Shah <itsnishant@gmail.com>
Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further ( http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person.
One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity.
Hope this information is helpful to you,
Warmly Nishant
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos < marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello there!
I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject.
I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil.
My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc.
I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death?
Best regards,
Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Anne Holappa anne.holappa@welho.com
Hi Anne and all, I agree with you that there are many generations in the web, and I think that it's something that must be considered. I also believe that the age explains the different experiences that you and Anna described.
From what I've been observing, I must say that people behave completely different in Orkut according to the deceased person's age. I've witnessed profiles of people who were around 40 or more when they died. Although their death was sudden, the commotion was fully different from the one that usuallyt happens with younger ones. The profile of the older still received messages for a while, but then people stopped writing. There are one or another who keep writing, but they're few. When the profile's owner was young, even after 3 or more years since the death, people keep writing often, and always in such an emotional way.
Best Mariana ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anne Holappa" <aholapp2@welho.com> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 3:05 PM Subject: [Air-L] web sites after death Hi Anna & Marianna etc. I agree network gives possibilities for showing the sorrow in a new way. But I have to point out that there still are kind of several generations acting in the web. Death that happened personally close to me left there for example a facebook profile of the deceased that wasn´t to be formulated to any memorial website or virtual graveyard. It was lacking almost all that even though the deceased was very well known and had several contacts etc. I wrote privately to Marianna about it. I don´t know if it´s due to age of the persons near the deceased or is it due to sorrowing habits we have here in Finland and the stereotype of not showing deep feelings in public. I don´t know, but like I said to Marianna, this is very interesting research area. Anne Holappa, cultural anthropologist, Finland Lainaus Anna Haverinen <aehaverinen@gmail.com>:
Hi Mariana and everybody, I'm a recently graduated student of anthropology from Finland and I have witnessed the same phenomena here too. It seems to be a natural response for the people left behind since a blog or a webpage or a profile seems to have this sense of personality, e.g. the personality of the deceased. In the same way people leave candles and memorial artefacts to locations where a person had died or used to live. People seem to think that we leave a hint of ourselves in places, also in virtual space. This phenomena includes official memorial websites and virtual graveyards (which I'm studying currently for my doctorate thesis) that have been flourishing since 1995. I did my master's thesis about virtual memorial sites, their public/private aspects and conceptualizing virtual space experience. Death rituals (mourning, bereavement and honoring the deceased) are changing with Internet and social networking, and they seem to give a new way of coping with loss and sorrow.
Unfortunately my work is still in progress and my master's thesis is still only in Finnish (will get it translated soon), but hopefully this remark has been helpful to you.
Best, Anna Haverinen
2009/7/3 Nishant Shah <itsnishant@gmail.com>
Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further ( http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person.
One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity.
Hope this information is helpful to you,
Warmly Nishant
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos < marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello there!
I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you all information about my research subject.
I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil.
My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their memories etc.
I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more than one year have passed since the death?
Best regards,
Mariana Matos-Silva PhD Student PUC-Rio Rio de Janeiro, Brasil _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- Anne Holappa anne.holappa@welho.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Apparently someone is thinking about what happens to online stuff when you die... -- kcby New services promise online life after death updated 2:50 p.m. EDT, Mon May 18, 2009 o New services are helping people organize their digital assets after their death o Customers can designate loved ones to access their posthumous online accounts o Legacy Locker allows users to set up a kind of online will, with beneficiaries o Eternal Space lets loved ones create customized online grave sites http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/18/death.online/index.html
Hi Anna, Your study must be very interesting, and I'm looking forward to its translation! It would be nice to read your conclusions. I agree that the sense of personality seems to be something that counts. I see two different things. One is the act of making hommages or tributes to the dead. This has always happened through History. Internet opens a new possibility for it to happen. As we used to light candles in places that represented the deceased person, we can light virtual candles on the Internet. I think that this is completely different from talking directly to the dead. It's not made to honour the deceased and it's also not a way of telling other people how good that person was. On Orkut, or in other SNS, the profile was made those who died after. It's completely personal. The profile looks like the person. What I see are not messages that simpy regret the death. Family and friends tell the dead about their deepest feelings, share memories, tell about how their lives are going. After having said that, I ask: do the phenomena you've been witnessing look like what I've described secondly, i.e., people who write direct messages to the dead? Finally, in Brazil we have also these memorial websites, but they're surely not as popular as the habit of writing to the dead through Orkut. Best regards, Mariana ----- Original Message ----- From: Anna Haverinen To: Nishant Shah Cc: Mariana Matos ; air-l@listserv.aoir.org Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 1:40 PM Subject: Re: [Air-L] Introducing myself Hi Mariana and everybody, I'm a recently graduated student of anthropology from Finland and I have witnessed the same phenomena here too. It seems to be a natural response for the people left behind since a blog or a webpage or a profile seems to have this sense of personality, e.g. the personality of the deceased. In the same way people leave candles and memorial artefacts to locations where a person had died or used to live. People seem to think that we leave a hint of ourselves in places, also in virtual space. This phenomena includes official memorial websites and virtual graveyards (which I'm studying currently for my doctorate thesis) that have been flourishing since 1995. I did my master's thesis about virtual memorial sites, their public/private aspects and conceptualizing virtual space experience. Death rituals (mourning, bereavement and honoring the deceased) are changing with Internet and social networking, and they seem to give a new way of coping with loss and sorrow. Unfortunately my work is still in progress and my master's thesis is still only in Finnish (will get it translated soon), but hopefully this remark has been helpful to you. Best, Anna Haverinen 2009/7/3 Nishant Shah <itsnishant@gmail.com> Hi Mariana, Thanks for the introduction to your work. It sounds quite fascinating and indeed has seen some parallels in India. Especially with a couple of high-profile cases which found a lot of publicity in the mainstream media, and were dubbed facetiously as 'Orkut Deaths', we saw a similar phenomenon in India. In both the cases, the two young people who died, left active profiles which were at the centre of a great public debate and resulted in thousands upon thousands of people coming to see, to comment and to leave testimonials and messages of grief, condolence, and anger at the tragic turn of events. I had written a small Op-ed for a national daily that gives some of this information which you can research further ( http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/09/02/stories/2007090250010100.htm ). I also have a chapter in my PhD thesis that deals with these two cases and gives more details about the same. Please let me know if you would like to have a look at them and I will email it to you in person. One of the more important thing about these live profiles of people who had passed away, was also the appearance of clones. There were suddenly many people who were creating 'false' accounts, appropriating the persona of the dead, and also receiving a lot of comments and scraps.I found this particularly interesting because these accounts were accurate in the information about the dead persons and also appropriated their pictures, creating elaborate false networks and photo albums to create a certain notion of authenticity. Hope this information is helpful to you, Warmly Nishant On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Mariana Matos < marianasantiagodematos@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello there! > > I've been on the list for almost 2 months, but, until now, I've just read > what people were writing. And I must say there are many interesting topics > being discussed! However, I'd like to introduce myself and share with you > all information about my research subject. > > I'm a psychologist from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a PhD student at PUC-Rio > (the Catholic University). I'm part of a group of researchers who have been > studying the psychological and social impacts of the use of technology such > as the Internet, cell phones, games, and some others. The group is leaded by > Professor Ana Maria Nicolaci-da-Costa, who's been researching on this > subject since the very beggining of the use of Internet in Brazil. > > My research in on the habit of writing scraps, on Orkut (the most popular > social network site in Brazil), to people who died and left their profiles > active. As you should know, if someone dies, the profile may still be > active, what happens if no one deletes it or asks the site to delete it. > I've been observing that a substantial number of dead people's profile > receive a great amount of messages, writen often by close friends and > family. In these messages, they "talk" about their feelings, tell the dead > about their quotidian (i.e. what they did in the weekend), talk about their > memories etc. > > I have the impression that this is a brazilian phenomenon, and I'd like to > ask you if you see something similar in your countries, even if people use > other SNS, like Facebook or any other. Do you know people who died and let > their profiles? Do you know if they still receive messages, even if more > than one year have passed since the death? > > Best regards, > > Mariana Matos-Silva > PhD Student > PUC-Rio > Rio de Janeiro, Brasil > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/ > -- Nishant Shah Doctoral Candidate, CSCS, Bangalore. Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( www.cis-india.org ) Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09 # 00-86-21-66130376 _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
participants (5)
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Anna Haverinen -
Anne Holappa -
KC Burgess Yakemovic -
Mariana Matos -
Nishant Shah