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Important note: this template includes major elements of Part I, but the instructions on Canvas are the authoritative source. Make sure to read through the assignment page and review the rubric to confirm you have everything you need before submitting. When done, delete these instructions before submitting.
Social media accounts increasingly function as long-term digital identities, preserving personal memories, interactions, and data over many years. As Facebook users age and remain on the platform, a growing number of accounts will eventually belong to deceased individuals. This project explores how demographic trends and mortality projections may lead to a significant increase in deceased Facebook accounts and what that means for digital legacy and personal data ownership.
This topic is important because most users do not consider what happens to their digital presence after death. Deceased accounts continue to store personal information, photos, and interactions, raising questions about privacy, data ownership, and platform responsibility. Through data visualization, I aim to show the potential scale of this issue and increase awareness about digital legacy planning. The project will conclude by encouraging users to think about managing their online presence and understanding how their data may persist beyond their lifetime.
A project structure that outlines the major elements of your story. Your Good Charts text talks about story structure in Chapter 8 - you should describe what you hope to achieve. Make sure the outline is detailed enough that we can see how you anticipate your story unfolding. You can incorporate your Story Arc from the in-class exercise along with your user stories and one sentence summary to make the topic even more clear.
One-Sentence Summary
As Facebook users age, the number of deceased accounts will grow, raising important questions about digital legacy and ownership of personal data after death.
User Story
As a reader, I want to understand what happens to Facebook accounts as users age and pass away, so that I can better manage my own digital legacy and understand how my personal data may persist after death. I can do this by reviewing my social media account settings, assigning a legacy contact, and deciding what should happen to my data after I pass away.
Project Structure / Story Arc
- Introduction: How social media acts as digital memory storage
- Facebook users are aging: Show age distribution of users and projected age shifting
- The rise of digital ghosts: Show mortality rates by age group and projected growth of deceased accounts
- Why this matters: Connect to digital legacy and privacy
- Call to Action: Actionable takeaways
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Post images of your anticipated data visualizations (sketches are fine). They should mimic aspects of your outline, and include elements of your story.
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A couple of paragraphs that document your data source(s), and an explanation of how you plan on using your data.
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A link to the publicly-accessible datasets you plan on using, or a link to a copy of the data you’ve uploaded to your Github repository, Box account or other publicly-accessible location. Using a datasource that is already publicly accessible is highly encouraged. If you anticipate using a data source other than something that would be publicly available please talk to me first.
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In a few sentences, you should document how you plan on completing your final project.
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List any references you used here.
If you used AI to help you complete this assignment (within the parameters of the instruction and course guidelines), detail your use of AI for this assignment here.