Jed is quoted in a new Reader’s Digest article, “Coping with Death on Facebook“. “With a funeral, there is a specific time and place for people to mourn,” says Jed Brubaker, a University of California, Irvine, social media scholar. “On Facebook, anyone at any time can engage in this process.”
The death of a loved one can be a challenging time for survivors who are left to manage the deceased’s affairs. In many cases, our increasing amount of online data is exacerbating this issue. Our social media lives create vast quantities of personal data that remain after we die. However, these data are not like other assets that we include in wills or testaments. They are connected to a large number of friends who survive us, all with diverse needs.
Jed is featured in a Halloween-themed article by UC Irvine News, titled “The spooky side of science“. “The mass adoption of social network sites includes, as a natural consequence, the growing presence of profiles representing individuals who are no longer alive,” he explains on his website. “However, the death of a user does not result […]
Jed was interviewed by Center for Digital Ethics & Policy in an article called “RIP Trolling“. “For many individuals it’s about connecting with other people who are experiencing loss,” explains Jed Brubaker, a digital identity researcher who focuses on death, social media and post-mortem identity. Facebook, of course, is also a popular destination for commiseration. […]
Jed was recently quoted in articles in the Huffington Post and the German Magazine PAGE about death, Facebook profiles, and digital identity. “Facebook doesn’t do a good job of thinking about death,” says Brubaker, the scholar who studies death on social media. “It doesn’t have that concept. There’s no checkbox that says ‘I am dead,’ […]
Jed Brubaker will be a guest on Iowa Public Radio’s show “Talk of Iowa” tomorrow morning (July, 11, 2012; Wednesday, 10 AM Central/Noon PST). The segment is on the ways in which social media is impacting death and grief. Link to the talk show session: [Jed’s online at 31:45 till 48:57] http://news.iowapublicradio.org/post/mourning-digital-age More information on […]
Congratulations goes to Brubaker, Kivran-Swaine, Taber, and Hayes as their ICWSM 2012 submission, “Grief-Stricken in a Crowd: The language of bereavement and distress in social media” was nominated for a best paper award! Congratulations and good luck in Dublin!
STAR Group members will be presenting a paper at the ICWSM 2012 conference. Brubaker, J. R., Kivran-Swaine, F., Taber, L., and Hayes, G. R. (2012). Grief-Stricken in a Crowd: The language of bereavement and distress in social media. Proc ICWSM-12. Dublin, Ireland. June 4-8, 2012. Congratulations to the authors! We hope to see you all […]
The death of a user does not result in the elimination of his or her account nor the profile’s place inside a network of digital peers. Friends use profiles postmortem to say last goodbyes, share memories, and coordinate funereal arrangements. These practices highlight three important themes for social networks and the representation of identity for their users: embodiment, representation, and temporality.
Congratulations to Jed Brubaker and Janet Vertesi on the acceptance of their paper on death and social networking sites to the CHI 2010 workshop HCI at the End of Life. Death and the Social Network Jed R. Brubaker & Janet Vertesi We analyze profiles and associated comments on social network sites following the death of […]