Research Essay #1

It is known that everyone will eventually die, and it affects people in various ways. It has been discussed many times during my college career. Does the concept of impending death cause people to "live life to the fullest?" Is this why people are so keen to leave there mark on the world, to become immortal? In my opinion, the answer is simple... yes. Then how do people become immortal? Dr. Rolf Von Eckartsberg, a social psychologist, wrote an intriguing essay in 1988 about this that he titled Social and Electronic Immortality. This essay discusses how forms of new media are being used to achieve immortalizing and memorializing people who have either already died or are preparing for them imminent ends.

One of the most common ways that people use to immortalize themselves is through creating wills, but this is no longer done with just pen and paper. It is becoming increasingly popular for people to use legal videos that can be shown to those who it concerns, so that by doing this they "can reach beyond his or her personal death and affect the future" (Social and Electronic Immortality). However, as people draw nearer to their deaths, most have the urge or need to further commemorate themselves and the lives that they led. This can be done by a variety of methods, such as keeping a journal, photo albums, or scrap booking. But unfortunately, according to Dr. Eckartsberg, these methods do not produce the effects that their creators or collectors wish for them to. On the contrary, those still breathing "are kept too busy with their own lives to sift through all our materials and organize them into a coherent documented legacy-story" (Social and Electronic Immortality).

It is here that new media comes to the rescue. With the ability to digitize all types of information, and place them into a comprehensive story, people are able to document, with greater ease, their lives and have all of the information in one convenient place where others may look upon and peruse the information at their own leisure. This allows them to honor, or immortalize the deceased while maintaining their own lives.

Since Dr. Eckartsberg wrote this essay in 1988, he could only see the possibilities that new media was creating. He states at the end some possibilities that the future of new media will provide. "These creations of life-summing will constitute a person's lasting spiritual will and legacy, perhaps to be placed into national archives, a sort of "universal population life data bank" ... Life-sums and their matrices, the immortality portfolios, may also become accessible at "electronic wakes" and in "electronic cemeteries and memorials" and even in "immortality communication satellites", by means of which the survivors and successors can engage the deceased and his or her life via interactive video -- especially at anniversaries -- thus commemorating the deceased and enlarging and deepening their understanding and appreciation of who and what this person was and remains in our living discourse: in electronic immortality" (Social and Electronic Immortality)." Some of these prophecies are indeed in existence now. There are hundreds of websites that commemorate those who have died. Some are created by the deceased themselves, and some are created by the grievers, but as technology continues to advance, perhaps we will be able to talk with digital versions of those who have died. Who knows?

Works Cited

"Von Eckartsberg, Rolf." Social and Electronic Immortality. December 2000 (1988). 31 January 2007 http://www.earthportals.com/Portal_Messenger/immortal.html