While reading “Cyberspace While You’re Dead,” by Rob Walker, I was struck both by the author’s commentary regarding the number of Americans that don’t have a will, as well as the number that acknowledge that some sort of digital will would probably be a good idea but haven’t done that either. So I decided to see what the experience would be like. After a quick Google search, I came across the site, My Life and Wishes (www.mylifeandwishes.com), which calls itself “an online archive of everything you want your family to know after death.” As an added bonus, there’s a 30 day free trial before a subscription fee of $79 annually, so I signed up, setting the account to cancel after the free trial.
The website allows you to fill in everything from financial information and healthcare information to who should get your pet and what you want to be in your eulogy. You can also set exactly who should be able to see what information. For example I set my parents able to see financial information but my siblings to be in charge of determining where my cat ends up. Additionally, the way it prompted you for answers made me include things that I can’t imagine I would have in a real will, for example, what kind of food my pet eats.
In reflecting on the experience of setting the whole thing up, I had a quite similar experience to Walker when he wrote about how his wife was relatively disturbed about receiving an email detailing her role as digital executor. My parents were both confused and slightly concerned when I explained what I up to. Knowing my parents would want little to do with it, I set up my roommate as in charge of my social media accounts. I asked her what she would do with them and she said, “absolutely nothing.” She also seemed slightly irritated that I was making her responsible for it, but that also could just be because I interrupted her Netflix to ask. Maybe in part because I don’t have a whole lot of financial information or any dependents, I felt like the whole thing was a little unnecessary. When my roommate asked me what I would want done with my social media accounts, I came to the realization I really didn’t care. I would want my friends and family to have access to whatever would help them grieve or come to terms with my death, but that’s the extent of my preferences. After all, I’d be dead, and whether my Facebook account remains active or not isn’t going to change that, but if it helps those who mean the most to me, why not let them do what they want with it.
Walker, Rob. “Cyberspace When You’re Dead.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 Jan. 2011. www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Immortality-t.html.