What You Need to Know to Prepare for Your Digital Afterlife

Your digital footprints linger well after death. What are the considerations for these perpetual assets to protect them from misuse? Learn in this episode.
Show Notes:  https://bit.ly/46XQfto

In This Episode:

• 03:00 – Take a Chill Out of Summer with a Boston Cooler
• 08:03 – Our Digital Afterlife – Preparing Your Digital Legacy
• 26:55 – 7 Ways to Die in the Future: Impaled by a Resurrected Wooly Mammoth!
• 29:02 – Outro

Why do we need to concern ourselves with our digital footprints after we die?

This is the 5th episode in the series about the digital afterlife and this week we focus on what you can do to prepare so that your digital assets are used. Ignoring your digital assets can result in the loss of valuable financial and sentimental belongings and even compromise your identity if these assets fall into the wrong hands.

What steps should I take to safeguard my digital assets?

A comprehensive estate plan should include a plan for digital assets to ensure they are managed or distributed according to your wishes. We talk in depth in this episode about the things you need to think about and consider. Also visit our related content and resources.

Related Content:

• S5E17: Digital Assets after Death…What Happens to Your Phone?
• S5E18: How to be Prepared for the Digital Afterlife
• S4E49: How to Preserve a Life through Digital Memorials
• S5E13: How Will Leading Causes of Death Change in the Future?
• S4E49: How to Preserve a Life through Digital Memorials
• S4E52: Are You Prepared to Die? Get Ideas for Your Advance Care Planning
• S4E7: Tips for Cleaning in the Fall of Our Lives

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 3:00 Take a Chill Out of Summer with a Boston Cooler
• 8:03 Our Digital Afterlife – Preparing Your Digital Legacy
• 26:55 7 Ways to Die in the Future: Impaled by a Resurrected Wooly Mammoth!
• 29:02 Outro

Transcript

What-You-Need-to-Know-to-Prepare-for-Your-Digital-Afterlife

This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello, and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner. I use my experience from working as a nurse for 46 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every person viewpoint to our podcast.

We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions before a crisis hits. So welcome to this week's show. Please relax and get yourself something cold to drink with or without alcohol, and maybe a little bit of sweetness like a cupcake or some cookies.

And thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me as we continue our series about the digital world and death with our fifth, yes, fifth installment about the digital world and the end of life. Like the BBC, we see our shows offering entertainment, enlightenment, and education, and divide that into three halves to address each of these goals. Our main topic is in the second half, so feel free to fast forward to that chat-free zone.

In the first half, Charlie has the story of the Boston Cooler. No, not the Boston Strangler, the Boston Cooler, and our recipe of the week. In the second half, I'm going to talk about how to prepare now for your digital afterlife.

And in our third half, Charlie continues his series on ways to die in the future. Hello, Charles. Hello, Marianne.

Come on down. Okay, yeah. Actually, when you mentioned about the sweets and maybe with a sweet drink, I just had to jot a few notes as to what sweet drink would go with that.

Maybe a daiquiri, a traditional lime daiquiri, one of those things that, a pina colada, that's what I was thinking of. So, okay, good. It's a good way to start the show.

I may need to take a bar break in the middle. So, what's new with you? Oh, what is new? It's, um, God, is it possible to say nothing? I mean, you know. Sometimes nothing new is good.

Life goes on. Yes. Doing, doing whatever.

Yes. I'm so boring. You are many things.

Boring is not among them. Well, I feel like I'm boring because I have nothing to report. So, I hope you're doing something that you can report.

Yes. In our first half, from our friends at Gastric Obscura, in August 1924, a reader contributed a recipe to the Detroit Free Press for a nectar that the Olympians pined for but didn't know how to make. The cool summer drink consisted of sarsaparilla, a sassafras soft drink, poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and stirred until smooth.

The name of the sweet godly elixir? The Boston Cooler. It makes sense that a Detroiter would wax poetic about the Boston Cooler. Motown had become synonymous with the sweet treat.

Though the Boston Cooler originally, a cocktail of rum, lime, and soda water, was born in Massachusetts in the late 1800s, it gradually migrated and morphed across bar counters and soda fountains until it evolved in its final frothy form. Vanilla ice cream stirred in a glass of Detroit's Werner's Ginger Ale until smooth. Like Billy Dee Williams.

Smooth. Across all its iterations, the Boston Cooler stayed true to its original purpose. Supplying cool refreshment on a hot day.

Even without booze, the drink remained a go-to recipe for bartenders when the temperatures rose. An 1889 article about New York summer cocktails featured a recipe for a Boston Cooler that blended ginger ale and sarsaparilla. The long, teasing headline read, Seductive drinks that come like a breeze from the Arctic.

Cocktails that are mid-summer poems. A recipe for a liquid blizzard suited to the dog days. During the heyday of American soda fountains in the early 1900s, Boston Cooler became a catch-all term for any chilled drink.

Philadelphia soda jerks mixed theirs with local Hire's root beer and ice cream. While Maine mixologists made theirs with a combination of Moxie, a local bitter soda, lime, and rum. Going even further off book, one ice cream company's 1915 recipe for a Boston Cooler was simply a scoop of ice cream resting in a halved melon.

But none of these accompaniments paired with vanilla ice cream were quite like one brand. Detroit's Werner's. A drink that exists somewhere between ginger ale and cream soda.

In 1967, Werner's made a move to claim the Boston Cooler as its own by trademarking the name. Though they specifically trademarked Boston Cooler to promote a new ginger ale flavored ice cream bar, that treat met with modest success. It wasn't until a new version of the Boston Cooler emerged.

A smooth milkshake-like blend of ice cream and Werner's that the company's cooler conquest was complete. At this point, all other Boston Coolers, whether made with rum, melons, or moxie, faded into the shadow of a massively popular ginger soda shake. Now, Werner's Boston Cooler is so undeniably Detroit that in 2016, local McDonald's stores gave out free Boston Coolers on the city's 315th anniversary.

Soda fountains have largely disappeared. But you can still find Boston Coolers at Detroit's ice cream parlors and bars, which sell alcoholic versions. It's also incredibly easy to make at home.

All you need is Werner's and vanilla ice cream. Die-hard fans may insist the ice cream be another Detroit favorite. Straws, but any vanilla ice cream will do.

Is it truly the nectar of the gods, or at the very least, a refreshing liquid blizzard on a hot day? Try the recipe to find out. You can mix one up and put it in your Yeti to take to your next funeral lunch, and you don't even have to share. Bon Appetit! Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe of the Boston Cooler and additional resources for this program.

Everyone Dies is offered at no cost, but is not free to produce. Please contribute what you can. Your tax-deductible gift will go directly to supporting our non-profit journalism so that we can remain accessible to everyone.

You can also donate at www.everyonedies.org. That's every, the number one dies.org. Or at our site on Patreon, www.patreon.com and search for Everyone Dies. Marianne? Thanks, Charlie. In the past four weeks, we've been talking about death in the digital age.

This discussion has a name, cyberthanatology, which is the communication of death related to experience within and with the digital or cyber world. Cyberspace is not independent of the physical world, and the people inhabiting cyberspace are real people. Each internet user leaves a digital footprint, and the addition of data in cyberspace creates a digital identity.

This digital identity that users maintain over time through actions that could be as different as using social media through specific accounts, leaving comments on forum pages, or maintaining avatars in online games, becomes our identity, like our identity in the physical world. The difference is, our body in the physical world will die, but our digital identity can live forever. Most people constantly use technology, therefore a large amount of data is accumulated over the years by a single user in the form of digital documents, pictures, and through social media accounts.

When we die, we leave behind a legacy of digital possessions that needs to be dealt with, just like our actual stuff. These digital footprints are our digital legacy. All digital legacy is not equal and may contain digital assets and property data stored in the cloud or devices, such as passwords and account information, communication crumbs, which are partial or complete email archives, digital personal belongings, like pictures and videos, and data collected by the interactions with digital service providers, social networking sites, online stores.

The different components of this legacy can be diverse. Some of these elements might potentially be treated in a way like physical personal belongings of the deceased and can be inherited by beneficiaries. Other components of the digital legacy might get a life of their own in cyberspace and continue to contribute to the development of the digital identity, even if the original user is no longer alive.

This represents another way the deceased identity maintains in existence in the cyberspace beyond death. Although this phenomena is growing, existing regulations are scarce, often conflicting and not universally agreed on. National laws do not exist in digital spaces, especially in the context of deceased individuals leading to a major difficulty in enforcing any regulation.

Some digital service providers have started to change their policies, like Facebook's policy to memorialize the account of deceased users and the ability on an Apple phone to generate a legacy contact access key that, along with your certificate, will give your designee access to your phone. New companies have started to offer management of the deceased user's account, like our previous podcast interviews with Nikki Weiss. Yet there are discrepancies regarding the options offered by various services in various countries and to various individuals.

Ignoring your digital assets can result in loss of valuable financial and sentimental belongings and even compromise your identity if these assets fall into the wrong hands. A comprehensive estate plan should include a plan for digital assets to ensure that they are managed or distributed according to your wishes. Federal and state laws prohibit unauthorized access to private personal information and computer systems.

These laws offer important protection against identity theft and fraud for consumers. However, they are obstacles for your loved ones who need to gain access to your digital information after you die. Similarly, data privacy laws also provide obstacles and it can be very expensive for your loved ones to go through a court process just to gain access to your digital property.

A digital asset is anything that exists only in digital form and comes with a distinct usage right or distinct permission for use. Data that do not possess these rights are not considered assets. So digital assets include but are not limited to digital documents, audio content, motion pictures, and other relevant digital data currently in circulation or stored on digital appliances such as personal computers, laptops, portable media players, tablets, data storage devices, and telecommunication devices.

Types of digital assets include but are not limited to software, photography, logos, illustrations, animations, audio-visual media, presentations, spreadsheets, digital paintings, word documents, electronic mails, websites, and various other formats with their respective metadata. The number of different types of digital assets is increasing due to the rising number of devices that use these assets such as smartphones serving as streams for digital media. New digital assets including certain types of cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens are created every day.

So what are the things that you can do for yourself to protect your digital afterlife? Here are the actions you can take. Start an inventory of your digital assets. Make a list of accounts, usernames, passwords, and security information.

If we think of a digital asset as anything you own that only exists on your phone, tablet, computer, or in the cloud, then that list includes Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies. Digital photo albums and storage facilities such as Flickr, Shutterfly, or Amazon Prime. iTunes, Google Play Music, and other digital music and multimedia libraries.

Social media profiles, domain names, blogs, and personal websites. Media and content published online. PayPal and Square Cash accounts, documents, and records stored online including files stored with Google Docs, Dropbox, Box, and financial and medical records stored with third-party providers.

Avatars and virtual property in games such as Second Life and the World of Warcraft. Loyalty program benefits, and digital intellectual property. Make sure you keep this inventory somewhere safe.

Second, you want to manage your passwords. Rather than including a list of usernames and passwords in your will, use the password management software and make sure that the information will be available to your executor. It will also be useful to write these down.

Amazon carries a wide range of password books, you know, like the address books of our youth to help you organize your passwords. Keep in mind that many sites use two-factor authentication for added security. To log on to these sites, in addition to username and password, users will need a one-time code sent via text, email, or an authentication app.

To ensure your representatives have access to these sites, you'll also need to be sure that they have any passwords or personal ID numbers needed to obtain those one-time codes. Third is online storage safety. Consider using an online storage that's in the cloud or vault like Dropbox or Everplans.

These options allow you to safely store digital images, scan paper documents to digital, and keep all your documents in a safe location. If you have actual copies of things, you want to get a water-resistant, fireproof, safer box to store these items. And you can also get that on Amazon.

You should also back up the information that you have stored in the cloud. Back up any digital assets to a storage device on a regular basis so they can be accessed by your family members with fewer problems. Next is a digital asset plan.

As part of your estate plan, include a detail plan for your digital assets. This part of your estate plan can help you specify your wishes and ensure that your information is safe. Next is authorization.

You should include any specific instructions about the role of your executor and what he or she will have authority to do on your behalf. Your executor should have a specific role and should not be invasive or inappropriate with your information and records. So when you think about choosing an executor, you really want to be picky.

Choose someone you can trust, who can be objective, and who you know will follow your wishes. Now when you choose an executor, you choose a main executor or if you want to divide it between two people, you can. But if you choose one executor, you have to have a backup executor because if that person's unwilling or unable to carry out that role, there needs to be a backup.

So you need to think about that before you go to a lawyer or use online forms to put all this together. You can create a statement of intent. You can talk to your estate planning attorney about creating a statement of intent for each digital account.

If you have numerous accounts, it may be better to have a broad statement overall. If you need to specify details of one or more accounts, you can always have specific statements of intent for those accounts. Legal framework.

Not all digital assets can be transferred upon death due to terms of service agreements. Be aware of any restrictions as you plan. And this usually comes up with related to your digital music collection.

In addition to identifying digital assets and giving family members access to them, your estate plan must address ownership issues involving these assets. Consider working with your estate planning advisors to create a digital asset protection trust, sometimes called a digital asset revocable trust. This trust, which typically is revocable, allows you to transfer ownership of digital assets to the trust or in the case of licenses, grant authority to the trustee to access and manage the asset.

I'm not sure how much we've motivated you to do other aspects of advanced planning. Like a will or an advanced directive or a durable power of attorney. But maybe this scenario will motivate you to plan for your digital afterlife.

Imagine someone using your image to create a sex bot with a computer program that has your bot engaged in all types of behavior you may not even know exist with people and animals and a wide variety of inanimate objects. It could happen and you could prevent it. Charlie, thoughts? Well, Marianne, the cat's already out of the bag.

The genie's out of the bottle. But you know what? It's funny you're saying this because it was just last week that you know, Meta slash Facebook slash Instagram lost a lot of people's photos and videos. It just disappeared.

They don't know what happened. And they're not saying what happened. They just are sorry it happened.

We can't do anything about it. And Meta slash Facebook slash Instagram refuses to say how many people were affected. You know, and this is, I believe, you know, Facebook, Meta, Instagram is still the largest of these things in the world.

And they can't control it. So to put everything you have on the computer online or whatever it's called, storage. Yeah, as you had mentioned, you've got to have a backup.

You can't just put, you know, all your eggs in one basket. You have to have backup. I don't know.

And then with it, too, you know, people can manipulate things. As you said, you know, pictures, images can just take something and make it, you know, take your picture, make it into anything, you know, they want. This was a huge deal with the Screen Actors Guild, of which I'm a member, and why it took so much longer to have a new contract.

Because studios just did not want to promise that they would not use someone's image to create something of their own, or to manipulate it and, you know, to have somebody doing whatever a studio wants and for no pay. You know, if your name is George Clooney, you don't have to worry about it. But, you know, most people have to worry about it.

Like you said, things are manipulated. So, uh, yeah. So how did, how did, what did Meta lose? Was it people's Facebook posts, or do they have a storage? Specifically, information on Instagram, pictures and videos.

They're not saying how many pictures and videos were lost. They're not saying how they were lost. But just that they were lost.

So this is the problem with a monopoly. That whole Facebook, Instagram, Meta thing. They can do anything they want, and you really have no recourse.

We had, I think it was like three years ago, something that I had posted somehow was determined to not meet their standards. And they cut off our ability to advertise. And for three years, we have not been able to advertise or boost posts or anything.

And you, you can say, I want to, I want this investigated. And it's been pending for years. There's nobody you can call and talk to or email and talk to or protest.

It's theirs. And they say they can ground you for a lifetime if they want to. And it's really, it's really frustrating.

It's not just us, because there's forums of people just, you know, beside themselves. And their answer is, it's our platform. We can do what we want.

Including lose your data. Yeah. But of course, then there's no repercussions.

Oh, geez. So if anybody ever asks me, I'm in favor of not having monopolies, which we're not supposed to have, but we're going more and more toward. But that's off topic.

Anyway, be sure you protect your digital property. Or you may be a nude fantasy dancer in your afterlife. Oh, dear.

Oh, you know, I just remember, and this is before all this modern tech stuff that all the young kids are using. Fred Astaire, the wonderful dancer, when he died, and it was in his papers, wills, whatever, he never wanted his image to be taken out of contact. Everyone knew this, including his wife.

After Mr. Astaire died, she gave some vacuum cleaner company permission to take Fred Astaire, you know, took him from one of his movies, took him out and put him dancing with a vacuum. The very thing he said he never wanted. You know, but it was his wife.

She was executrix of his wills and everything, of his will and everything. And she just said, I don't know, I guess she needed the money. Who knows? But, you know, Astaire said, no, he never wanted that.

And this was long before the age of, you know, all this digital stuff we have now. And there are now protections to protect against that. And then, like I said, be sure you choose an executor who's going to do what you want, not what they want.

But then, you know, again, if you're, you know, you would think your wife would listen to you. Silly girl. No.

OK. In our third half, this week's predicted cause of death is impaled on the tusk of a resurrected woolly mammoth at a futuristic zoo. Hello, Marianne.

This sipping on a nice Boston cooler made with Werner sounds like a way to go. Imagine taking your family to the zoo centuries from now and catching a glimpse of a real life woolly mammoth. Harvard geneticist George Church and his team have made the de-extinction of a woolly mammoth their mission.

In 2015, Church's team successfully spliced the DNA of a woolly mammoth into the genome of its closest living relative, the Asian elephant, using CRISPR. This was a great first step, but there are many challenges when it comes to scaling genetic engineering to, well, mammoth proportions. The task would likely involve artificial wounds and a ton of time.

The resulting creature won't be as much a mammoth as an elephant-slash-mammoth hybrid, but it's the best chance we have for resurrection. If you've ever seen a depiction of a mammoth, you know they're, well, woolly. Their shaggy hair is incredibly inviting.

Children and adults alike all want to pet them, and you are no exception. You lean too far forward over the fence as soon as one stirs, you could surely be its friend. But instead, you tumble into the enclosure, grabbing a tuft of its fur on the way down.

Woolly mammoths were about the size of African elephants, 11 feet and 6 tons, or about 12,000 pounds, about four compact cars, and their tusks were about 15 feet long. It wouldn't take much force for the creature to whip around, impaling you like a human kebab on a prehistoric skewer. Ah, what a way to go.

And that's it for this week's episode. Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening. This is Charlie Navarette, and from author Kingsley Amis, no pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home.

And I'm Marianne Matzo, and we'll see you next week. Remember, every day is a gift. This podcast does not provide medical advice.

All discussion on this podcast, such as treatments, dosages, outcomes, charts, patient profiles, advice, messages, and any other discussion are for informational purposes only, and are not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. Always seek the advice of your primary care practitioner or other qualified health providers with any questions that you may have regarding your health. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from this podcast.

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. Everyone Dies does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, practitioners, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned in this podcast. Reliance on any information provided in this podcast by persons appearing on this podcast at the invitation of Everyone Dies or by other members is solely at your own risk.