Being somewhat behind on my RSS feeds I just hit an article from a friend who died earlier this year.
It’s so… odd… to be opening a bunch of interesting tabs from their writing — and not being able to thank them, or chat to them about it, or at least drop them a snarky email.
It’s something I’ve noticed before about friends who have died with a large online presence. They pop up in an odd search of my emails, or some bit of their online writing gets reposted and briefly becomes a talking point again, or the phone decides make a new “memory” with their photos in, or some social media channel decides you need to see their face again for whatever weird emergent algorithmic behaviour is being optimised for this week, and so on.
People’s digital lives increase the surface area of grief.
The people in my life who’ve died with a large digital/networked footprint appear in my life so much more often without me prompting it.
You don’t have to open that box of letters, or browse a photo album, or sit down with friends and have that “remember when…” moment. The balance between choosing to remember and being made to remember changes.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can feel intrusive. To me at least.
There’s probably a vaguely work related point to be made here. About how these kind of experiences emerge, rather than being designed for. How these kinds of stress cases are rarely (if ever) considered when people are designing digital services. But I don’t have the enthusiasm or energy for that right now.
I just miss my friend.
ttfn.
