Saturday 5 March 2016

Is your cyber life death prepared?

A blog friend posted tonight about how friends just suddenly stop blogging and disappear.  Except they don't vanish into a black hole because their blog remains as it was since their last entry was posted.   And unless you know that person in real life you may never know what happened or if they are going to return after a break for whatever reason.

That started me thinking about what would happen to my blog when I die.  I know that many people choose to blog anonymously so unlike your funeral wishes (I wrote about that here in my post A letter to my Children.) those left behing might not even know there is a blog to deal with let alone what to do with it.

My Facebook pages and things like Goodreads are seen by other family members so I'm sure, eventually, something would be done about those.  My blog is only seen by one member of my extended family so I'm relying on her to close it down.  She's pretty internet savvy so I'm sure she'll work it out.  I'm also now a lot older than her due to her insistence of not aging beyond a certain point despite there being only 4 months between our birthdays!

Hopefully this won't be an issue for my family just yet but with the ever expanding virtual world there are so many things that could need closing down and removing from the web.  Although we all know that once something is put out on the internet you can never completely remove it. 

Going paperless is a good thing but it's hard to follow a virtual trail.

It's sad that it's taken a bereavement to bring this all to mind.  This is the first year when neither hubby or I have Mothers to visit/call on Mother's Day (tomorrow here in the UK) but I had a delivery of lovely flowers and chocolates from my daughter today so that cheered me up.  She's currently in Rome so I won't see her until later in the week but thanks to the internet we have been able to be in touch.

There are lots of good things to be said for the internet and the advances in technology but sometimes I do think the changes and innovations are happening so fast we don't have time to consider all the implications.  Maybe I need to revisit that letter to my children!

4 comments:

  1. Good points raised again.

    You will be pleased to hear that I am not expecting to shut down your blog any time soon! Have a great mothers day. xxx

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  2. I have already designated my sister to close things down for me when I am unable to do it. Good discussion points!

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  3. Like our mutual friend addressed in her blog, this has become an important talking point! I, too, am following several blogs whose authors have disappeared without a discernible trail ... I hate where my imagination takes me.
    I hope you're enjoying a lovely Mother's Day!

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  4. It is just sad to me when they go away and we never know what happened to them. I think my family will deal with my blog. It may take them awhile but eventually they would remember it!

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