The phenomenon of "digital" death: formation and genesis of the attitude to death in social networks of students
The phenomenon of "digital" death: formation and genesis of the attitude to death in social networks of students

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, we study the phenomenon of “digital” death, its genesis and the attitudes towards death in thecontext of social networks. As a result of the investigation we have discovered different forms of “digital death and the wayspeople react to it in social networks. We further investigate the origins of different user attitudes towards “digital death”and the impact of manipulative relation to death in social networks on the social reality. Some people stage their own deathon social networks by posting images on their homepage, which has the intentions (i) to attract public attention, (ii) toexpress their autoaggression (iii) to make fun of death and (iv) to reduce their own anxiety of death by "sharing" the fearwith other people. Our analysis shows that the main purpose of staging one’s death on social networks is to reduce the fearof death by creating plans, playing.

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