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.
How have personal ads changed in the last 30 years, and how has the HIV/AIDS crisis influenced these changes? We analyzed 250,000 personal ads for men who have sex with men from the online classifieds website Craigslist.org and found that the percentage of ads using sexual health-related language have increased from 23% in 1988 to 53% today. Analysis also showed that use of sexual health-related language in a location correlates with HIV prevalence rates.
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 […]