Investigating Death Preparation Practices on Social Media

Problem Statement

What happens after death with your social media? "Death is often regarded as a special and personal process" while social media is "impersonal and trivializing". "Not knowing the extent of one's data hinders the process of hiding data deemed incongruent with self-representation."

Tasks

• Perform a literature review
• Conduct Online survey about data produced by a person / Develop Scenarios
• Conduct online survey about the perceived appropriate handling of data depending on the relationship with the deceased person and the temporal distance
• (Build a low fidelity prototype)
• Write a thesis and present your findings in the Disputationsseminar
• (Optional:) co-write a research paper

Requirements

• Basic knowledge of user research
• Willingness to dive into social media Scraping/Crawling

References

• From Personal Data to Digital Legacy: Exploring Conflicts in the Sharing, Security and Privacy of Post-mortem Data
• I said your name in an empty room: grieving and continuing bonds on facebook
• What Happens After Death? Using a Design Workbook to Understand User Expectations for Preparing their Data