After my dad passed away, getting a Skype popup "<dad> is available" was heartbreaking. My mum switched his laptop on, I had to make sure his accounts wouldn't appear as available after that.

My nephews babysitter has Facetimed me from my dead sister's iPad accidentally a few times, very heartbreaking to see it pop up.

The UI certainly is often poor, particularly in the FaceTime case, but as a general matter, being reminded of a late loved one gives random opportunities to remember, reminisce, and to speak of the departed to children and newer acquaintances, which honors their legacy.

I think that your heart is in the right place with this comment, but you seem to be suggesting that this is the (only) right way to relate to death: to interpret reminders of the deceased as positive opportunities to remember with love.

I think I agree that some people would benefit from a chance to this framing. However, I am not sure I agree that everyone will, or that those who prefer not to be reminded (particularly at random and unasked for) are turning up their nose at serendipity, as it were.

For me and perhaps for others, I find set and setting to be very important when remembering the deceased. How, where, and when makes a big difference in how such remembrance makes me feel, and whether it helps with acceptance and closure or not.

I find that intentional, set aside times for grieving rituals-- or celebration rituals, as is sometimes the case-- is the best approach. But being blindsided by loss hurts and profits little.

The avatars the various communication channels use online for their users stand in for the actual user an its actions. If they keep on acting after someone has deceased it’s weird to see. I’ve experienced it with my dad’s Skype account. I can’t see how that would be different for anybody in practice.

That's one take, but I can't agree with that. For one thing, what if it isn't a legacy you want to honor? Seeing comments from your dead abuser's account on facebook isn't something most people want.

Death is complex and people/cultures have all sorts of different feelings on it. I don't want to get text messages from my dead sister or emails from my dead grandfather. It's creepy and weird and unsettling (even if just for that split second or two before you figure out wtf is happening).

Hard pass.

I lost my brother-in-law a few years ago, and it was awkward and painful to continue seeing his name in places like Steam [You both play this game] and other media. I had a damn near heart attack when my father-in-law turned on his computer to collect some things before putting it away, and he auto-signed-in to every service we both used.

I think it will be intriguing to see if this new world of interconnectivity and constant reminders of those who are no longer with us will aid or hinder trauma recovery.

My dad died of a heart attack in January, 2018, and yet here he is on Google Street View, spotting the car driving by. I check back frequently to see if he's still depicted at his address. And of course, I've saved my own copy https://goo.gl/maps/8R9Hm4B3VmNbKRLq7

Maybe you want to know that if you click on the clock on the top left you can go back in time, so should you lose your copy you can get it again (or from anywhere).

I do the same thing with a street view of my childhood home (since been sold to new owners) that still has me and my sisters' cars on the street from visiting my parents for the holidays in 2011.

Brings a tear to my eye every time I see it because it reminds me how things change.

I had a colleague and good friend who died in an accident - he was still logged into one Linux server which I made a point of not rebooting for as long as possible.... (it was an actual physical server in a co-location space).

Re: not rebooting for as long as possible. There was one mainframe at my old school that was finally decommissioned. The admins found a print job that had been waiting there for over 20 years.

Sorry for your loss. Not sure if you've seen it (or were inspired by it) but this XKCD is quite poignant: https://xkcd.com/686/

My Grandfather died 3 years ago.

Still haven't taken him off my favorites contact list...

Google has a system for sending your account to someone else after a timeout period. I thought it was a great idea until I got to the part where you're given an opportunity to add a message.

Thinking of my kids / wife / family what went form an administrative task got really heavy suddenly... i stopped at that point.

You could copy my sorry but I'm dead message, it really is like this:

Hi <insert names>, I loved you all very much but I guess I died. Don't worry about me. I set this up before I died so you could get into my accounts and settle things. Enjoy your lives while you can!

Love <me>

I just included instructions like "you should probably export this all in case you need it".

10 years ago my mom died and I can't bring myself to remove her from my contacts.

Facebook have a system like that too, enabling access for someone else after one dies.

Answering machine. I got to hear my father after he passed.

Make a copy of that message if you want to save it. Don't trust an important artifact to a system not designed for preservation.

I have the last voicemail from my Mother. Won’t ever delete it.

An old high school friend of mine died a few years back and I am still getting birthday notifications on Facebook. His profile just sits in limbo, a record of his activities the last few weeks before he died.

> His profile just sits in limbo, a record of his activities the last few weeks before he died.

I think there's some way to notify Facebook of his death so they can "memorialize" his profile. Then, according to his settings, it will either be deleted or converted into a memorial managed by some contact he elected.

I just realized that in less then a month it is gonna be the first time it is my brothers birthday after he passed away...

I will check this account, thank you!

Same for me. I contacted Facebook about this and they asked for a family member and a death certificate. My friend's family mostly are illiterate and from a small village, so I asked FB if a news clipping(of accident) and obituary from local newspaper would do, they refused. After some communication, I left it. I have since left Facebook but other mutual friends say they still receive his birthday notifications every year.

On a google maps nostalga lane trip I found ability to rewind time to the quaint old paint job on my deceased grandparents house. Brought back some good memories running around as a kid.

My younger brother (deceased now 10 years) is still one of my LinkedIn contacts. It's not so bad as other platforms since I don't interact with LinkedIn much but it hurt a great deal at first and LinkedIn had no mechanism to retire or close his profile.

FWIW, they do now. I just recently closed my younger brother's account (he died four years ago). They have a form for it, you say who you are, what your relationship is, and they ask for a link to an obituary. Then they delete the account.

Facebook, I think, marks old accounts as memorials. I don't Facebook anymore so I might be remembering that wrong.

you can ask Facebook to memorialize the account, and she couldn't login anymore even if she wanted to

> I feel like society is very much in uncharted territory here

Society has been in uncharted territory since humans existed. It's not 'more uncharted' because the dangers we face are social media and climate change rather than plague and poor sanitation.

You seem to feel confrontational about this, and I'm not clear why. Pointing out that no one's had to deal with these specific issues before is not anti-progress or anti-technology.