Online Afterlives

August 3, 2020
Sisto, philosophy researcher at the University of Turin, examines how social networks and other new media are altering human relationships with death, memory, and identity in this dense and intriguing account. Digital culture has exponentially increased the ability to record, disseminate, and preserve images of life, according to Sisto. Some people have used internet technologies to ensure that their identities will continue to exist and evolve after their deaths. Others, such as technology writer James Vlahos, who converted interviews with his terminally ill father into an artificial intelligence program, have pursued “digital immortality” on behalf of loved ones. These digital simulacrums lack the unpredictable dynamism of an actual personality, Sisto writes, and keep mourners focused on the reality of physical death even as they deny it. Furthermore, though Facebook allows users “to fully integrate the memory of the dead into their current lives” through storytelling and commemoration, intrusive reminders of the deceased might exacerbate grief for some mourners. Sisto also details high-tech approaches to funerary practices and encourages people to plan how their online selves will be laid to rest. Lay readers will find the academic prose and theoretical discussions challenging, but Sisto’s insights are persuasive. The result is an eye-opening study of an underexamined aspect of the internet age.