IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v4y2015i4p1127-1139d59196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Wants to Live Forever? Living, Dying and Grieving in Our Digital Society

Author

Listed:
  • Debra J. Bassett

    (Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK)

Abstract

Almost ubiquitous hardware technology, such as smart phones, ensures that social networking sites are part of users’ everyday norms and routines. However, some are now using these new communication technologies to deal with the issues of death, dying and grief. With the hope of being able to create digital memories to leave behind for future generations, the opportunity to “live on” and become digitally immortal is seen as empowering to some: but what about those left behind? Through a review of the current literature exploring how social media are being used as a new space to grieve and mourn, this paper contributes to the literature by arguing for the need for clarity in the lexicon being used by thanatologists and other disciplines. Furthermore, it introduces the term “digital zombie” to describe the dead who remain “alive” in our digital society. The paper concludes by joining the call for further research into the nascent phenomena being generated by human-computer interaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Debra J. Bassett, 2015. "Who Wants to Live Forever? Living, Dying and Grieving in Our Digital Society," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-13, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:4:y:2015:i:4:p:1127-1139:d:59196
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/4/4/1127/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/4/4/1127/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ana Reyes-Menendez & Marisol B. Correia & Nelson Matos & Charlene Adap, 2020. "Understanding Online Consumer Behavior and eWOM Strategies for Sustainable Business Management in the Tourism Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-14, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:4:y:2015:i:4:p:1127-1139:d:59196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.