Outline

• Why you need this

• Kids on Facebook

• Life, death & Facebook

• Grief processes, offline & online

• Research

• Implications for practice

Why you need this presentation…

Kids on FB: The policy

Kids on FB: The reality In 2011, 7.5 million children under the age of 13 were using

the site, including more than five million under the age of 10 (Consumer Reports)

Violating age restrictions through lying is common: 44 percent of online teens admit to lying about their age so they could access a Web site or sign up for an online account

Parental awareness/facilitation is common

Livingstone, Olafsson & Staksrud (2013) summarise levels of usage in 2013

Kids on FB: The extent (2013 statistics)

The response?

Thanatechnological phenomena

Patient blogging Personal websites

(www.lumponablog.com)

General websites for various illnesses (The Patient Experience, Carepages)

Disease-specific websites

Bereavement support communities (Griefnet)

Online cemeteries/virtual memorials (WorldWideCemetery)

Grief blogs (livingwithmomscancer.blogspot.co.uk)

“Repurposed” social networking profiles (Facebook Timelines) or in-memory-of pages

Bereavement in online communities

Attending funerals remotely

“Digital legacies” of the deceased and “persistent digital presence”

Facebook is a representation of self…

…but even more so, a representation of self-in-relation...

…in verbal and visual form.

Regulating privacy

Postings made on the Timeline may be hidden from all, visible to a subsection or

all of the friends list, or seen by the world at large, dependent on privacy settings.

The building of your (auto)biography

On Timeline, everyone’s profile starts with birth and

continues with a timeline design that enables quick

jumping to different points in your life…

…from birth…

…until…

Dead people on Facebook As of June 2014, 1.32 billion

Facebook users overall

2011 estimate: 580,000 US based Facebook users passed away in 2012, 2.89m worldwide (Lustig, 2012)

In 2012,there were an estimated 30 million profiles of the dead on Facebook (Kaleem, 2012 in the Huffington Post)

Policy on profile removal

Policy evolution (21/02/2014)

Provoked by questions about:

How might people feel?

Are we honouring the wishes and legacy of the deceased?

Are we serving the bereaved as best we can?

Wildly different takes on FB & the experience of grief

VS

Searching and calling The urge to search for the

person who has been lost – restless seeking and scanning

The urge to locate the dead, feeling most drawn those parts of the environment where that person may most likely be found

The urge to call to the lost person – to communicate and make contact

”When someone is lost the most

natural place to look for them

is

the place where they were last

seen”

- (Parkes & Prigerson, 2010)

Oscillating The dual process model of

grief (Stroebe, Schut, and van den Bout, 1994) - oscillation between mourning and their ongoing life and its demands

Oscillation between approach and avoidance

Continuing the bond Freud’s assumption: To hold on to connections with the dead is

pathological – emphasis on moving on, moving away, investing one’s energies fully into other things, other relationships

Continuing bonds theory (Klass, Silverman & Nickman, 1996): relationships do change with death but do not end, and that continuing the bond can be normal, adaptive and comforting

Klass (2006) describes continuing bonds as being “collectively held” and involving “social identities” of the dead and of the survivors

“The bonds with the individual dead person are…interwoven with the bonds to the other dead…as well as to the other living people” (Klass, 2006, p. 851)

Forming a “durable biography”

Purpose of grief is to construct a durable biography that allows the survivors to continue to integrate the deceased into their lives (Walter, 1996)

For the place of the deceased to be stable and secure, the image of the deceased needs to be reasonably accurate

Process through which this occurs is conversation with others

“Unfortunately, these others might not be readily available in

a mobile, secular and bureaucratic society which

separates work from home, and disrupts tradition, ritual and

rootedness in place…”

- (Walter, 1996, p. 12)

Internet as facilitative… In the immediate aftermath of the death and beyond, mourners

can readily search out, locate, and contact the dead via Facebook profiles - “[the Internet] is rapidly becoming the first place where bereaved people will seek for help” (Parkes & Prigerson, 2010, p. 239)

Communication with other mourners who knew the deceased is facilitated

Accessibility of Facebook facilitates oscillation between mourning and engagement in everyday life

When digital legacies are left behind, this may facilitate continuing bonds

The person leaving behind any visible/accessible “digital legacy” has significant input into their durable biography

…and problematic? Negative reactions to finding out about death through digitally mediated

means – e.g., via email, social networking sites

Marginalisation/disenfranchisement of certain groups of mourners - even family – “chief mourner” issues

Management of the “digital legacy” – e.g., Facebook profile – and potential trauma of profile removal

Concerns about mourners from friends/relatives who don’t understand seeking support/consolation/connection online

Phenomenon of Internet “trolling”

✁

Methodology: Multi-strategy approach

First phase: Five in-memory-of groups purposively sampled and analysed with Qualitative Document Analysis (Altheide, Coyle, DeVriese & Schneider, 2008)

Immersion in, exploration of, and reflection on site content

More systematic and detailed observations with a focus on process, meaning, key themes arising

943 total wall posts across five sites

Second phase: Interviewed three administrators of in-memory-of groups, with data analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, about:

Experience of interacting with memory group

Experience of interacting posthumously with in-life profile

Theme One: Modes of address …as mediated by social norms of the medium …as mediated by other social norms …as mediated by beliefs about communication

Theme Two: Beliefs about communications …deceased persons as conscious recipients of communication …evidence of return communication via other means …Facebook as effective medium/mediator

Theme Three: Experience of continuing bond …comfort of communication …vividness of deceased person’s telepresence …investment in maintenance of bond …sense of “everydayness” …fear of bond breaking

Theme Four: Nature and function of Facebook community …as a source of comfort and help …as a source of information …as a source of conflict or competition …as co-constructors of the deceased person’s biography

Convergence of findings Facebook memorial groups indicated that they carried all the

positive benefits of traditional mourning rituals, plus some additional ones (e.g., accessibility, continuity) ( Fearon, 2007)

Observations about direct address of communications to the deceased; conclusions about damaging effects to the continuing bond when profiles are removed (Falconer et al., 2011)

Positive and facilitative effects on adolescents’ ability to grieve and to cope (Williams & Merten, 2009)

Facebook R.I.P. pages/memorial groups show all the characteristics of community, a community and an interaction that includes the deceased (Forman, Kern & Gil-Agui, 2012)

Online social networks empower & enable formerly marginalised mourners (Carroll & Landry, 2010)

1. Being aware of death notifications via FB

• Need for recognition of how this will increasingly be the rule rather than the exception and acceptance of what is

• Need for reflexive awareness and bracketing of any personal negative reactions this may provoke (e.g., “how terrible to have to learn of the death in such a way”) – what informs these?

• Need for awareness of positives of learning about a death in this way, e.g., immediate access to community support

2. Responding to marginalised mourners

• Need for awareness that traditional “inner circle” mourners (e.g., immediate family) may feel excluded – formerly disenfranchised mourners (e.g., friends) may have privileged access to persistent digital self of the dead individual

• Need for awareness that admittance to Facebook (e.g., via friends) may feel distressing or confusing to family members – new understandings or bits of information about their loved one may emerge and need processing

3. Being sensitive to tension between mourners

• Need for awareness of ways tension can manifest online • Struggle for “chief mourner” position (e.g.,

competing “in-memory-of” sites amongst groups of friends or individuals)

• Wrangling over right to manage dead person’s legacy/image – either to edit the biography or…

• …to remove the Facebook profile altogether.

4. Being familiar with retraumatisation through profile

removal

• Need for awareness of how mourners may experience profile removal

• May need to assist clients in living with the anxiety of this possibility

5. Helping clients manage their

relationship with profile

• The profile may continue to sit alongside the profiles of living friends

• Ease of access through mobile technologies – benefits and drawbacks

• “Defriending” a deceased loved one may feel complicated and upsetting

• Status updates may continue to appear in news feed on non-memorialised profiles (e.g., so-and-so posted on wall), which some may experience as difficult

6. Positioning yourself theoretically

• Usefulness of reflecting upon and situating these phenomena within bereavement theory (e.g., continuing bonds, dual processing model)

• Solid situation within a theoretical framework improves conceptualisation, interventions, clinical decision making, and feelings of competence

7. Knowing about (emerging) “norms”

Understanding what seems to be typical in the following areas can help identify and address what may be atypical/problematic/complicated grief:

Belief in communications reaching the deceased

Visits to profiles – frequent, over long terms

Incorporation of visits and communications into everyday life

See Carroll & Landry, 2010; Hieftje, 2012; Kasket, 2012)

8. Addressing concerns about mourners

• Need to be aware of common concerns:

• “He’s in denial”; “It’s creepy/concerning that she still checks her friend’s Facebook”; “He needs to let go and move on”

• “The informal way his friends are expressing themselves on his Timeline is inappropriate – some of it is even obscene!”

• Possible need for psychoeducation

9. Reflecting on personal attitudes

Qualitative research with counselling psychologists indicates presence of concerns about social networking’s not constituting “real relationship” or “real communication”

What effects might such preconceptions have on your ability to understand and to help? (See the Digital Age Technologies Attitudes Scale (DATAS) (Kasket, 2012)

10. Bracketing • What are your biases/beliefs/emotions/attitudes around

the digital age and social networking?

• How might these affect your work with individuals for whom continuing their bonds on Facebook is important/a significant part of their process?

• What reflexive practices can you engage in to help you to unpack and to monitor these?

[ BIASES ]

Trajectories of further research Better understanding of technology-specific phenomena that

may serve as risk factors for complicated grief, e.g., profile removal

Research to indicate whether technologically mediated grief/mourning differs in important ways from “analog” grief/mourning

Research into how people are managing and presenting their digital selves in life, as awareness grows about posthumously persistent digital identities

Research into the nature of beliefs regarding communication with the dead via Facebook, and into their impact

Resource:

Bereavement Care, 31(2),

Summer 2012 issue

Resource:

Edited book from Springer

Publishing Company,

2012

Resource

How do I hope this has helped you?

I hope you’ll know and understand more about children & young people’s normal reactions to loss and their typical mourning behaviours in the digital age (levels 1 & 2).

I hope you’ll see how technologically mediated mourning fits well within theoretical models of bereavement, better enabling you to incorporate new phenomena into your existing understandings & practice (levels 2 & up).

I hope you’ll have had the opportunity to examine your own beliefs about social networking, and how those beliefs might impact your ability to assess and to empathise – as well as to see how social media can be facilitative in grief and helpful in coping (all levels).