Cyberthanathology: death and beyond in the digital age

Abstract

The preponderance of technology and digital connectedness has revolutionized every aspect of humans’ social life, including death. Digital technologies are reshaping how the interactions between the living and the dead are negotiated. Indeed, emerging technologies are not only embedded in end-of-life, death, and grief experiences, they are also changing the global context in which these phenomena take place. Although interactions between death-related phenomena and technologies are not new, the ubiquitous presence of digitalized spaces drastically increased the salience and the magnitude of these interactions. To further and structure the understanding of these interactions, we introduce the concept of cyberthanatology as the articulation of death and all related phenomena with and within the digital space. In the light of this framing concept, this paper explores the topology of online death-related behaviors and phenomena, reviews the current state of knowledge on the online representation of death and grief, and identifies the challenges that will have to be faced in the future in order to optimally integrate the understanding of death-related phenomena in the larger field of cyberpsychology. By promoting and nurturing the dialog between the fields of cyberpsychology and death studies, cyberthanatology research will not only result in theoretical advances but also contribute to generate practical knowledge to help people deal with death and grief in the modern technological age.