Thanatosensitivity

Thanatosensitivity describes an epistemological-methodological approach into technological research and design that actively seeks to integrate the facts of mortality, dying, and death into traditional user-centered design. First coined by Michael Massimi and Andrea Charise from the University of Toronto in a joint paper presented at CHI 2009, thanatosensitivity refers to a humanistically grounded approach to human–computer interaction (HCI) research and design that recognizes and engages with the conceptual and practical issues surrounding death in the creation of interactive systems.

The term thanatosensitive is derived from the ancient Greek mythological personification of death, Thanatos (Greek: Θάνατος (Thánatos), "Death"), which is itself a term associated with the notion of the death drive common to 20th-century post-Freudian thought. This inter- or multi-disciplinarity is crucial to thanatosensitive investigation because, unlike many areas of HCI research, studies of death and mortality are rarely amenable to laboratory study or traditional fieldwork approaches. As Massimi and Charise argue, the critical humanist aspect of thanatosensitivity effectively offers "a non-invasive strategy for better understanding the conceptual and practical issues surrounding death, computing, and human experience".

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