A group of scientists from the Oxford Internet Institute claims that within half a century the number of Facebook profiles of deceased members will exceed the profiles of living.

The book of dead

The research of 2018 user accounts, conducted by OII academics, demonstrates that about 1.4 billion of Facebook members will die well ahead of 2100.

This also means that as early as by 2070 the number of living users would be less than the ones who are no longer alive.

By 2100 the headcount of the deceased might reach 4.9 billion, providing that the most popular platform keeps on mushrooming at the same speed, which is, of course, doubtful, seeking how quickly new technologies pop up and develop. Who remembers My Space today?

Statistically speaking

According to Carl Öhman, the head of the study, “These statistics bring to birth various complex issues that we have not met until now. New decisions should be made in regards to who deserve rights to all this information and how the dead person’s friends or a family can manage for their own benefits. For historians, this is a question of whether they could use the data to analyze the past”.

“These questions, which have a deep social background, have just now begun to worry scientists. The research of how to manage our digital leftovers might take years of patient labor.  Thanks to the fact that social media continues drawing attention of new users and none of Facebook members is immortal, this problem is getting equally important to everyone. But the aggregate of the dead user accounts constitutes something more than just the collection of its components. It is also nothing but a vital element of our overall digital ancestry,” Öhman pointed out.

His fellow researcher David Watson stated, “It is a first example in human history when one space represents a huge chronicles of social behavior, background and lifestyle.   Theoretically, overseeing these chronicles can be partially perceived as controlling our past. It explains the importance of making this information useful for more people and institutions than just being available to the only non-profit company. Our descendants should have rights to have access to digital ancestry for better understanding of their past.

In social networks, new users continue to appear, so the problem applies to all the same.

Extreme forecasts

In accordance with this study, there likely to be a couple of potentially extreme outlines for the development of our digital future.

The first outline presumes that Facebook would not acquire any new users after the year 2018. In this case a share of the deceased members from Asia would speedily expand and reach about 44% of the total user stats by 2100.  Indian and Indonesian accounts make up almost half of the Asian share, meaning that by the end of the century only these two countries would deliver about 279 millions Facebook deaths.

Another outline is based on the assumption that this essential social media tool will be quickly growing. The present annual speed of this growth is 13%, and if it keeps on like that until market is full, then Africa will be the one to comprise the thriving share of lifeless Facebook members. As an illustration, Nigeria can take central stage in this case, comprising more than 6% of the entirety. This is a pretty significant marker, compared with Western world data, which Facebook profiles will represent only tiny part of the total, where USA may have the best chance to hit top 10.

In the words of Carl Öhman, “It is too early to rely on the above assumptions for predicting our future. The current study is not sufficient for making reliable conclusions and further investigation is needed for drawing the successful model of our tomorrows. But the general conclusion about the necessity of such investigations is made and shared by the majority of scientists who understand the importance of digital implications on our lives. Our concern relates not only to Facebook, but to all social media as a whole which now has a significant impact on modern society and daily lifestyle.

What to do with the digital assets of the deceased?

As explained by Watson, “Facebook must come to understand that the amount of accumulated information has now reached the level when it needs to be thoroughly managed by those who have professional skill and experience in this sensitive field. There should be unanimous impression that all the potential solutions to this vital ever-expanding problem can be found only through close collaboration with qualified specialists such as chroniclers, ethicians, historians and even archaeologists.

This scientific forecast became possible thanks to the details available through the Audience Insights tool of Facebook as well as the United Nations data about the number of anticipated deaths and overall population by country. For the moment, this work is the most all-enveloping and widely available study in regards to the scope of the above problem, though its authors accept that it may have a couple of constraints.

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