Congratulations to Jed Brubaker and Janet Vertesi on the acceptance of their paper on death and social networking sites to the CHI 2010 workshop HCI at the End of Life.

Death and the Social Network

Jed R. Brubaker & Janet Vertesi

We analyze profiles and associated comments on social network sites following the death of the user to suggest two novel approaches to death and computing. Using the dead as examples of “extreme users”, we develop recommendations for design of Web2.0 applications that consider the importance of intersubjectivity in online identity construction and management, and the ubiquity of technospiritual practices.