There’s a new Web app causing some uncomfortable seat squirming this week. SeeYourFolks.com is a website that will calculate the number of times you’ll see your parents before they pass away. The site is a bit morbid, to say the least, but it’s also an eye-opener into the mortality of our lives.
When you enter SeeYourFolks.com, the website will ask you to input your parents’ country of residence, the number of times you see them each year, and each of their ages. The site will then use life expectancy data from the World Health Organization to generate your magic number.
Obviously, many factors outside of a person’s age and country of residence factor into his/her unique life expectancy. By using only this information, though, SeeYourFolks.com generates an unpersonalized number that gives you a general idea of how many times you may see your parents before they pass away. Why not take in more information to provide a more accurate number? Because the site’s creators want to help you grasp and quantify human mortality and hopefully inspire you to make conscious decisions about how you “spend” your life, not give you a parental visitations checklist.
If you could quantify the number of times you’d see loved ones before they die, how would you change your habits to make the most of that time? This is the question the site’s creators, Luke Tipping, Daniel George, Robert Holmkvist, and Omar Karim want to inspire in you. The group wrote on their website,
We believe that increasing awareness of death can help us to make the most of our lives. The right kind of reminders can help us to focus on what matters, and perhaps make us better people.”
As morbid as it may seem to think about your parents passing away, quantifying this number in an speculative way can help us appreciate what matters in life instead of sweating the small stuff. Your number will undoubtedly feel small, but it could spark you to change the way you live in a positive way. “Whatever the result is, it’ll never be enough,” Co.Design quotes Tipping, the website’s designer. “As a piece of stimulus nobody enjoys seeing the number. Although its power is in creating behavior change.”
If you feel viewing your number would lead to a positive experience for you, try the site here.
What do you think of SeeYourFolks.com? Is this the right kind of reminder of human mortality, or the site just a gimmick we were unlucky enough to stumble upon?
H/T Co.Design by Fast Company
It says my parents have already lived 6 years passed their expiration date, so it’s all gravy from here on out!
Definitely morbid. Interesting, but morbid.
The best way to make sure you see your parents frequently is to enter the visitation dates on your yearly calendar. This will give you regular reminders of upcoming visits.
I visit my parents 3 times a year 🙁
I’m kinda disturbed. It’s a little morbid. But, I am going to call my parents right now.
Very Mormid
That is weird and depressing. who thought of this? I guess some baby boomer that wants their kids to feel guilty.
I do think this kind of app can help spread awareness about life and death…
Very interesting and funny app.
What point they are trying to make? I don’t even want to think about it. It is one of the most weird app I have seen.
I don’t like this app.
zero for me…don’t need an app.
wow, what a great idea. someone should create an app to show where your life is heading. People need to wake up and stop being delusional.