---

Grieving 2.0
How Facebook is changing mourning rituals

By Lillian Schrock

 
Madison Sweeney’s family didn’t have current photos of her 18-year-old brother, Christopher when he suddenly died in 2007. So, Sweeney turned to Christopher’s Facebook page to see his blue eyes and shaggy, brown hair.

“I would go through his pictures all the time and sometimes read the nice notes his friends wrote, especially when I was having a bad day,” Sweeney, 22, of Stratham, N.H., said.

Christopher died shortly after his high school graduation. That same year, Facebook reached 30 million registered users, making it the largest education-based social network.

“Social media was huge at this time and became the main outlet for all of his friends’ communication with him still,” Sweeney said. “They would write notes on his wall about missing him, how they wished they could see him and share memories they had together.”

Since 2007, the practice of social media mourning has only grown. In October 2013 Facebook had 1.19 billion users. The practice of mourning online has become more acceptable with the growth of social media. Like Christopher’s friends, social media users share memories with others. It becomes a personal means of grieving.

“I think it’s just like if a person sees an obituary or an article in the newspaper,” Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles, said. She believes using social media to grieve is cathartic.

Ivy Gardner knows it can be. While home alone during a school break in 2011, she received a visit from a police officer. Her mother had been in a car accident on a snow-covered, rural road in Maine. She didn’t survive.

Gardner now uses social media as a tool to remember. She often uses the “See Friendship” function on Facebook to read past conversations with her mom. She also visits “ladymaine,” the blog her mother kept since Gardner’s childhood. In her posts, Gardner’s mother referred to her as IvLo, short for Ivy Louise.

“Those are the types of things that make me feel like I can go look at it and be with her,” Gardner said.

Gardner said she sees some of her family members posting about her mother’s death to garner attention, but she and her brothers use it in a more personal way.

“My brother Dil, who’s a cook, posted on Mother’s Day, saying, ‘I’m going to cook breakfast today for 500 mothers, I only wish I could cook it for you,’” Gardner said. “That post is not necessarily for anybody else to see, but more like an open message between two people.”

Even if it’s not a real connection, Gardner said it feels like one, and that helps.

Facebook recognizes the personal nature of Internet life after death, and now has options for the profiles of those deceased, including keeping the site active for as long as Facebook exists. Other options are turning the site into a memorial page or deactivating the account; both require proof of death and verification that the requestor is a family member.

Sweeney said Christopher’s Facebook page was deactivated this past year because it had been inactive for so long.

“My father has tried to reach out to Facebook customer service to resolve this situation but they can’t,” Sweeney said. “As my brother did not have any other forms of social media, it would be nice to have his Facebook up again.”

Elizabeth Dowdell, professor at Villanova University in Philadelphia, said rituals have always been a part of death, such as wearing black mourning clothes. For older generations, new online rituals may not mean as much. They still expect flowers on a gravesite or a phone call on the anniversary of someone’s death.

“I think as technology continues to be a major focus of everybody’s life, those things may peter out,” Dowdell said. “Just like those other rituals have changed.”

When Gardner’s mom died, the attention on Facebook from friends and family was comforting. Not only were they posting messages and photos on her mom’s page, but on hers as well.

“I think it’s positive and uplifting to create those connections,” Randi Kenney, a social media expert, said. Kenney has experience working in funeral homes. “It does what a funeral is intended to do.”

Over time those constant “I miss you” posts dwindle, just as visits to a grave in a cemetery become less frequent. But even three years after her mom’s death, Gardner said she still visits her mom’s Facebook page about once a month to see if there are any new posts.

---

---

---

Photos by Lillian Schrock & courtesy of Madison Sweeney and Ivy Gardner