Digital Ghosts: What Happens to Our Online Lives After We Die

"By 2070, the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook. Yet fewer than 5% of people have made any plans for their digital legacy." — Oxford Internet Institute, 2024

What is your digital legacy plan?

Every day, we create digital footprints. Photos uploaded, messages sent, accounts created, passwords saved. Our online presence has become as real as our physical one—sometimes more so.

But what happens to our online lives after we die?

For most of us, the answer is: we have no idea. And that uncertainty is creating a new kind of grief.

The inheritance no one talks about: Online lives after we die

When someone dies, their family often faces an overwhelming task: gaining access to digital accounts, preserving precious photos, deciding what to do with social media profiles that keep sending birthday reminders to the deceased's friends.

A 2023 study by McAfee found that the average person has over 100 online accounts. Most of those accounts have no succession plan. When the account holder dies, those digital assets—photos, messages, documents, subscriptions—enter a bureaucratic limbo that can take months or years to resolve.

And then there's the haunting experience of seeing a deceased loved one appear in "memories" or "on this day" features—an algorithmic reminder of loss that arrives without warning. Researchers call this "techno-grief," and it's becoming increasingly common.

The locked phone problem

According to a 2024 survey by Caring.com, 73% of grieving families reported difficulty accessing their loved one's digital accounts. The most common barrier? A locked smartphone with no shared passcode.

Behind that lock screen often sits thousands of photos, years of messages, and memories that exist nowhere else. Families report spending months navigating legal requests and technical workarounds—all while raw with grief. Every inaccessible photo feels like another small loss.

Apple, Google, and Meta all have legacy contact features, but fewer than 3% of users have activated them. The gap between available solutions and actual preparation is staggering.

"Our digital lives have become our real lives. But we haven't yet learned how to pass them on."

The new estate planning

We think of estate planning as wills and property deeds. But in 2025, digital estate planning matters just as much. That means knowing where your photos are stored, having a system for passwords, designating legacy contacts on major platforms, and making decisions about what should happen to your online presence.

Do you want your Facebook profile memorialized or deleted? Should your email archive be accessible to family? What about that cloud storage full of twenty years of photos?

These questions feel uncomfortable. But the alternative—leaving your family to navigate digital bureaucracy while grieving—is worse.

Start the conversation today

Your digital legacy is part of your legacy. The photos, messages, and memories stored in your accounts are as meaningful as any physical possession.

At Memorial Tribute Legacy, we help families preserve and share these digital treasures. But the best time to start is now—while you can make your own choices about what's saved, shared, and passed on.