Mine, yours, ours: family discussions on digital legacy

Abstract

When people interact in internet spaces, they produce a many digital goods and assets, which compose their digital legacy when they pass away. Some systems provide solutions for users to decide how such legacies are to be managed when they are gone. As the companies that produce those systems may be imprinting the culture of their home country on them, it is worth asking, how do Brazilian families perceive the fate of digital legacies when faced with systems that offer this functionality? To answer this question, we carried out an exploratory research with a qualitative approach, with the objective of analyzing the usability of systems and the perceptions of families during the process of configuring digital legacy management in Google Inactive Account Manager and Facebook. This study was divided into two parts: 1) Evaluation of the usability of these systems through the Cognitive Walkthrough Method; and 2) Analysis of different perceptions of family members during the configuration process, as a family. All steps were carried out remotely, observing ethical precepts and restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study revealed that most participants realized the importance of thinking about the destination of digital goods and reflected on this topic during the study, even considering the exclusion of goods. However, during the family interaction, some questions were raised associated with the emotional cost of participating in the study and the role of the family and its different generations, both in this decision and in relation to the lack of trust in the systems in charge of their digital assets.