Persuasive Essay On Online Grieving

Death today is accompanied by extra baggage. The family and friends of those who passed now must deal with the consequences of grieving on social media, most specifically Facebook. The bereaved should not use Facebook to express grief. Individuals who know the deceased should refrain from communication with other grievers or the deceased himself. Facebook creates unnecessary problems such as having a hard time moving on, extra hardships for the bereaved, devaluation of the deceased’s worth, and conflict between grievers. Online grief makes it difficult to create a reality where one must continue day-to-day grieving. Facebook is the main source for online grieving because it offers a space for two types of grief. It displays loss-oriented grief,

Online grief affects the family in two specific ways: when strangers publicly grieve and when false information is spread on Facebook. When strangers bombard the family/loved ones on Facebook, it makes grieving for the family more difficult. Alec D, a participant in the Wandel study, said when he was checking in on a deceased friend’s Facebook, “I noticed the people that were really close to her hadn’t posted anything. This may make me sound like a bad person, but my feeling is that if those that loved her didn’t write things on her wall, why do other people? You don’t need a Facebook page to remember someone in your heart” (Wandel, 2009). When strangers post on Facebook of the deceased, the family get overwhelmed with the large number of people who are grieving over their loved one. They might have not even known that their loved one knew all the people posting, which causes them to get defensive about their own personal relationship with the deceased. They may feel obligated to thank each person who posted on the deceased’s

Overshadowing the deceased comes from many sources, but specifically from Facebook amenities such as “likes”. The study by Marwick and Ellison describes the situation where “likes” are compared with the quantity, not necessarily quality, of love for the deceased. The example comes from the Beth and Cord Memorial Page. Someone posted on the page saying “I just noticed there are over 3,300 people who like this page- that speaks volumes about how many hearts Beth and Cord have touched.” A more extreme example comes from a post on the Bethany Harlen Memorial pag:; “I’m not going to bed until this page gets 1,000 likes!” (Marwick and Ellison, 2012). Although many people “like” the page, likes do not correlate with the quality of love people had for the deceased. The deceased may have only had a small family and friend circle, but was loved immensely by this circle. Having 1,000 or more likes does not accurately describe the quality of love, therefore masking the deceased’s true