Ctrl+Alt+Delete: The changing landscape of the uncanny valley and the fear of second loss

Abstract

AbstractWe are living in a digital era where ubiquitous social media are becoming part of the everyday lives of many. These social media platforms were designed for the living; however an estimated 8000 Facebook members die daily. It is therefore no surprise that the phenomena of how social media platforms are adopted to discuss death dying and grieving have become a growing area of research across numerous disciplines. Using qualitative methods, this article adds to and moves beyond existing research by focusing on the creation and inheritance of Facebook pages, thanablogs, posthumous chatbots, posthumous messages and posthumous avatars, to explore whether digital afterlives enabled by the Internet affect how people grieve. In order to examine how these messages and memories are experienced this study used in-depth qualitative interviews with participants from 3 distinct areas: Digital Creators (DC), Digital Inheritors (DI) and Service Providers (SP) the findings presented here explore three emerging themes (1) the link between comfort and control (2) the changing landscape of the uncanny valley and (3) the fear of ‘second loss’.