LifeXtra:

Should social media accounts of dead persons be deactivated?

When people with social media presence die, what should happen to their accounts? Should it be deactivated or not, Lifextra sought people’s opinion and here are their responses.

A game developer at Kaycee Games, Kenechukwu Ogbuagu, told Lifextra that such accounts shouldn’t be deactivated.

Why? Kenechukwu said “beyond the internet, everyone who has lived left some form of footprint no matter how insignificant it might have seemed. Why should we then erase footprints of people when their virtual presence contributed to their life experiences and might have even played a role in how they lived?”

He added that he wants his children and generation “to be able to see my teenage life and how I started becoming a man on Facebook.”

A young woman who identified herself as Jummai was dumbfounded with the question as she hasn’t given it a thought before. It was difficult for her to take a stand and she said, “I don’t know how to answer this because I’m thinking in both directions.”

Maryam Ahmad Mahuta, a lawyer and lecturer at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University Katsina, said such accounts should be deactivated. Why? Maryam narrating her experience said, “Recently I came across a dead friend’s Facebook account and it was his birthday; many people were sending him birthday messages not knowing he was dead! Perhaps if it were deactivated, that might not have happened.”

Dr. Emmanuel Nwusulor in tandem with Maryam said that “When a person is dead, the person’s bank account and debt profile is reconciled, settled and the account closed. The person’s Facebook and social media accounts represent the person’s live personality, thoughts and words, which die with the person. So, the dead person’s Facebook and other social media accounts should be deactivated. If the dead person’s social media accounts are not deactivated, they would be abused by hackers.”

Isaac Newtøn Akah, the author of ‘Living in Gidi’, believes that people’s virtual presence should not outlive them. “In the event of death, I believe social media accounts of the deceased should be deactivated so as not to bring back painful reminder to grieving people, and to avoid scammers taking advantage of such dormant accounts.”

In a different view, Caleb Somtochukwu Okereke, a young writer, said people’s accounts should not be deactivated because though it might hurt “It is an amazing way of remembering them.”

He however advised that such account should be marked as deceased. “Facebook, I know, has a feature that allows you make some amazing pages that announce that a person has passed on and makes provision for eulogies or something like that. Social media accounts are just as important as photos and videos and everything we keep for the purpose of remembrance,” Okereke explained.

Chukwuka Chukwumerije, a performance poet, feels it is irrelevant whether an account is deactivated or not, “it doesn’t matter because with time people will forget they even had a social media account. Slowly their memories would begin to fade. This is simply life,” he explained.