All the Ghosts in the Machine

'All the Ghosts in the Machine is as charming and touching as it is astute and insightful. Kasket observes that, until recently, fame was the only way to guarantee that your identity would outlast your lifespan; today, however, billions of lives are preserved as digital remnants after death. Kasket explores how this mass preservation of life shapes our collective well-being, and whether we should attempt to control the data that capture our digital lives' - Adam Alter, New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible and Drunk Tank Pink, Professor of Marketing and Psychology at New York University's Stern School of Business, USA

'Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, there is no better guide to how social media re-shape our experience of death and loss. Digital natives and digital immigrants alike will love this book' - Tony Walter, Professor at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, UK

'Elaine Kasket offers a compelling deep dive into the complexities of the digital age and what happens to a person's online life after their death - the impact which can often be devastating for bereaved families. All the Ghosts in the Machine makes you stop and think about how you would want your online assets to be managed after you die and what steps you might need to take to do so' - Sue Morris, Director of Bereavement Services, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA

'The constant use of technology - particularly digital and social media - has drastically changed the options that are available to document a person's life, mourn someone's death and preserve one's "digital legacy". Through the sharing of personal experiences and interviews with individuals dealing with life-limiting illness and grief, visionaries who have created mechanisms to achieve digital immortality and scholars who have studied these new phenomena, Elaine Kasket has written a thought-provoking book that will help digital immigrants and digital natives alike to contemplate the psychosocial, legal, ethical and practical implications of being mortal in the digital age. In addition to expanding their vocabulary (e.g., learning about "boundary turbulence") and gaining information about user policies that dictate access to their digital assets after their death, readers will benefit from Kasket's ten general principles to guide their decision-making about going "old school" and/or "digital" in the quest for immortality' - Carla Sofka, co-editor of Dying, Death, and Grief in an Online Universe