If Barnes Wallis were on Facebook…

Maybe I’m over sensitive, as I found the Museum of Me rather macabre when it was launched last year. I felt it smacked more of a mausoleum of me. However, that is nothing compared to the product below. Yesterday I came across an advert for the If I die App. The makers of this app have recognised a niche in that we are more and more concerned about our digital presence. Extrapolate that just a little and people start worrying about their digital afterlife. If you click on the logo below, you can watch a video all about the product. It will allow you to pre-set a message in numerous formats, which trusted digital ‘guardians’ will then unleash on your death.  The video explains all about it, and would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t taking itself so seriously!

Image: cdn-static.cnet

Many years ago Barnes Wallis, the great scientist, calculated the date of his own death by feeding all sorts of data into his calculations. Unfortunately he was not alive to verify the accuracy of his prediction! Maybe if we combined his formula with the app above we could simply pre-schedule the relevant update?

Personally, I have little or no interest in my digital legacy. What is meant to last will last, and the rest can vanish into that primordial soup of data which sloshes around cyberspace. By the time it happens, my digital life will seem but the palest reflection of all that I am enjoying.

What do you think?