Death on Facebook

Abstract

Although research has highlighted potential benefits social media sites present for the bereaved (Carroll & Landry, 2010; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010), there is also the potential for problematic effects (Kern, Forman, & Gil-Egui, 2013). This study examines the ways in which the social networking site Facebook was helpful and unhelpful to participants (N = 265) when someone they knew died. Analysis of 454 thought units revealed three themes describing participants’ experiences with communication on Facebook during bereavement: news dissemination, preservation, and community. The results suggest that Facebook communication is both beneficial and challenging for bereaved users, which may produce a coping paradox. Implications of grief-related mediated communication and the coping paradox are explored.

Keywords

Bereavement communication coping paradox Facebook grief social media

Social media and grief

Social media technologies influence our relational lives in various ways. Researchers have found that the use of social media, specifically Facebook.com (Facebook hereafter), can impact relational development, maintenance (Craig & Wright, 2012), and termination (Bevan, Pfyl, & Barclay, 2012; Lyndon, Bonds-Raacke, & Cratty, 2001). A growing body of research also suggests that social media influences the way we experience relational loss, as it provides a possible venue for grieving, support, and coping during bereavement. Researchers have analyzed how memorial websites (Clark, Burgess, Laven, Bull, Marker, & Browne, 2004), web cemeteries (Roberts, 2006), and social media sites (Carroll & Landry, 2010; Kern et al., 2013; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010; Williams & Merten, 2008) influence bereavement and are used as spaces for mourning, connecting to bereaved others, and memorializing the dead.

The majority of research analyzing the use of social media sites during the grief process has examined message content. Memorial websites and web cemeteries are designed to commemorate and remember the deceased, and they provide site users an outlet for emotional expression, reminiscing, disclosure, paying tribute, continuing bonds, sharing grief, and establishing community following a loss (Carroll & Landry, 2010; Clark et al., 2004; Roberts, 2004, 2006). Social media sites dedicated to grief include exchanges of hope, validation of grief, resource provision, and psychosocial support (Smartwood et al., 2011). Overall, social media sites are used to express varied emotions (Lester, 2012; Williams & Merten, 2008), communicate with bereaved others (e.g., comments about the death, current events, and emotions), and communicate with and about the deceased person (e.g., reminiscing, memorial sentiments, comments to deceased, seeking guidance from deceased; Carroll & Landry, 2010; Williams & Merten, 2008).

Benefits and harms of social media use

Based on analyses of online messages, researchers have argued that the bereaved, by posting various kinds of content, benefit themselves (and others who are bereaved) but might also experience risks or harms. First, the ability to maintain communication with the deceased may enable continued connections and reconnect the living and the dead (DeGroot, 2012), which can lead to more adaptive grief outcomes (Klass, Silverman, & Nickman, 1996). Second, Sanderson, and Cheong (2010) suggest that web-based memorials and social media use can enable meaningful grieving rituals, promote connection between grieving individuals, and facilitate community-building practices for people across different geographic locations, ethnicities, and religious affiliations. These benefits of online memorializing may stem from the inexpensive, accessible, and anonymous nature of social networking sites, which provide instant and unlimited access to others, allowing people to express grief, overcome distance to form community (Carroll & Landry, 2010), and give/receive support (Smartwood et al., 2011). Social networking sites may also empower individuals who feel disenfranchised from grief (Carroll & Landry, 2010) because they provide a safe haven for self-exploration and self-disclosure (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008).

While previous researchers discuss the positive aspects of online grief communication and continuing connections, the negative potential of mediated communication during bereavement should not be ignored. For example, continued bonds with the deceased are only adaptive if the bereaved individual recognizes that bonds are internal not actual (Field, 2006) and different from when the deceased was alive (Klass, 2001). The inability to differentiate the changed relationship, the past from present, and the living from the dead may be a maladaptive continued bond expression (Field, Gao, & Paderna, 2005) and could promote complicated grief (Field, 2006). This potential risk could be exacerbated through social media use and accessibility to remnants of the deceased person’s life. Messages regarding “eventual reunion” (DeGroot, 2012, p. 207), for example, may be indicative of the inability to let go of goals to meet again.

Clark, Burgess, Laven, Bull, Marker, and Browne (2004) and Roberts (2006) conclude that despite potential benefits, site format and control over content are important. Lesser controlled open sites (e.g., Facebook) may produce unintended memorials that could comfort but also overwhelm loved ones (St. John, 2006), as they are not created for the sole purpose of memorialization by the bereaved (Roberts, 2006). There are also risks to participating in grief-specific social media sites; advice may vary in helpfulness, access could compound losses (e.g., people drop in and drop out), and grievers could become dependent on the sites with no guarantee for support (Smartwood et al., 2011). Grief-related social media sites can also promote isolation from face-to-face interaction and act as barriers to seeking other forms of support (Moss, 2004; Smartwood et al., 2011). Williams and Merten (2008) note a lack of interaction between individuals commenting on Facebook profiles of the deceased, and Kern, Forman, and Gil-Egui (2013) observe that the majority of postings on Facebook memorial pages are directed at the deceased rather than other community members.

Coping paradox

Based on content analyses, scholars have extrapolated how various sites may function both positively and negatively for the bereaved (Carroll & Landry, 2010; DeGroot, 2012; Kern et al., 2013; Sanderson & Cheong, 2010; Williams & Merten, 2009). This study moves beyond analyzing messages left on social media sites and works toward understanding how people perceive their own and others’ use of social media as facilitating or impeding the grief process. One way to make sense of the coping paradox that Facebook may present for the bereaved is through the dual process model of coping with bereavement (DPM; Stroebe & Schut, 1999, 2010). According to the DPM, there are two types of bereavement stressors: loss-oriented (i.e., concentration on the loss experience itself) and restoration-oriented stressors (i.e., struggle to reorient to a world without the deceased). As such, bereaved individuals practice loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping, and they oscillate within and between these orientations – confronting and avoiding the loss and/or restoration (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Based on the content analyzed in the previous studies, Facebook seems to offer a space for both loss-oriented (e.g., emotional expression and discussing the death) and restoration-oriented (e.g., gaining support and continued bonds) coping that could in turn become additional stressors. For example, ongoing emotional expression or continued bonds may make it difficult for the bereaved to make sense of the death and reorient to their new worlds without the deceased.

Current study

Instead of interpreting the content of social media profiles and memorial sites, we seek to understand the ways in which the popular open social networking site Facebook is experienced for bereaved users. Focusing on perceptions of both helpful and unhelpful grief-related functions of social media furthers our understanding of social media’s influence on (mal)adaptive grief responses, and its potential as a coping mechanism for bereaved individuals themselves. This information is valuable not only to communication research but also to the grief and coping literatures, as analyzing users’ perceptions will help uncover if they are indeed experiencing (or discussing) the paradoxical nature of Facebook use that is implied in previous research.

Facebook was chosen for this study based on its prevalence of use across various age-groups, particularly in comparison to similar social media sites. An estimated 54% of the U.S. population is active on Facebook, and it has approximately 1 billion active users worldwide ( Key facts, n.d. ). According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Facebook is the most common online social networking site. Seventy-three percent of adult profile owners have a profile on Facebook, compared with 48% on MySpace and 14% on LinkedIn, and 71% of young adult users (18–29 years old) maintain a Facebook profile (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickuhr, 2010). Beyond its popularity, Facebook’s unrestricted social nature increases its ability to connect family, friends, and acquaintances from all over the world. This connection extends grief expressions beyond the immediate family and makes them more public and communal (Walter, Hourizi, Moncur, & Pitsillides, 2012). Also, deceased individuals’ accounts can be memorialized, so users can view the profile, leave comments, and send private messages even after death (Facebook.com).

The particular focus on social media consumers’ evaluation and use, coupled with the popularity and pervasiveness of Facebook as a social media form, makes this study both unique in the literature and timely in nature. The following research questions guided the study:

RQ1: When someone they knew died, what experiences on Facebook did participants consider helpful?

RQ2: When someone they knew died, what experiences on Facebook experiences did participants consider unhelpful?

Method

Participants

A total of 265 people participated in the study. Of them, 205 (77%) were female and 58 (22%) were male. Participant ages ranged from 18 to 64 with an average age of 26.7 (Mdn = 21, SD = 9.3). The sample is in line with the information about Facebook users. A Pew Research Center survey reported that of the 67% of Internet users who use Facebook, it is especially appealing to adult women ranging in age from 18 to 29 years (Duggan & Brenner, 2013). The majority of the sample identified as White/Caucasian (n = 225) while others identified as African American (n = 5), Asian American (n = 10), Hispanic (n = 13), or racially mixed (n = 7). The majority of the sample used Facebook on a daily basis (n = 237; 90%); 22 participants (8%) used Facebook a few times per week and 4 participants (2%) used Facebook a few times per month. When the data were collected, on average it had been 1.44 years since the person participants were responding about died (Mdn = 1, SD = 1.43, range from .02 years to 9 years).

Data collection procedure

After receiving Institutional Review Board approval, we recruited Facebook users aged 18 or older who had experienced the death of someone they knew. Recruitment occurred via three simultaneous methods, that is, departmental calls for participants, network sampling, and snowball sampling. An invitation to participate was sent to communication students with the understanding that participation could count toward course credit and also placed on the authors’ personal Facebook pages in order to reach Facebook users. Participants were asked to share the study information with other potential participants after completing the survey.

Participants were asked to respond to an online survey on Qualtrics.com. Before completing the survey, participants were asked to think of a time when someone they knew died. Then, they responded to open-ended questions about how they used Facebook during their experience with the loss of the person (e.g., “How have you used Facebook during your experience with the loss of this person?”), and how Facebook was helpful and unhelpful (e.g., “How do you think that Facebook has been helpful/unhelpful to you in your experience with the loss of the person?”). Participants were also asked to answer background questions about themselves, their relationship to the deceased, and the length of time since the death. They were also offered the opportunity to provide additional information about how Facebook affected their experiences with the death of the person. Completing the survey took approximately 20 minutes.

Analysis

The data were thematically analyzed using an inductive process, meaning the themes and categories were based on observed consistencies in the data rather than from an a priori list. We chose not to use categories from previous research because we did not want assumptions regarding which categories may be helpful or unhelpful to bias our analysis. The data were separated by experiences the participants identified as helpful or unhelpful. Then, the first and second authors independently identified thought units within the entire data set. Authors one and two reached consensus on thought unit identification with a total of 454 thought units.

Thought units were analyzed using constant comparison (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). Each thought unit could only be coded into one subtheme, but because a participant’s response could consist of multiple thought units, the response could ultimately be coded into several subthemes. Thought unit coding took place in four steps. First, authors one and two inductively analyzed the entire data set independently from each other using constant comparison. During this open-coding process, the authors analyzed the data within and across question responses to answer the research questions and identified and labeled emergent common themes that recurred across participants’ responses to questions. Each author developed a code sheet consisting of initial coding categories with notes, exemplars, and initial labels. After analyzing the entire data set separately, and developing individual code sheets, the first two authors discussed and integrated the categories to come to agreement on the themes, identify umbrella themes for the categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), and refine the coding of the data set. At the end of these sessions, authors one and two reached consensus on the finalized themes.

We took a final deductive analysis step to verify the coding. The third author used the categories and themes established by the first and second authors to analyze the full data set and validate the coding scheme. After the third author independently coded the data set, the second and third authors discussed the third author’s coding results and compared them to the first two authors’ coding results. During this meeting, authors two and three discussed each unit of data and how each coded it. Where disagreements were present, the authors discussed the discrepancy with careful attention to the codes’ definitions until they reached agreement. Finally, all three authors reviewed the final coding results and identified exemplars for each coding category.

Results

This study is guided by two research questions that investigate the Facebook experiences people found helpful (RQ1) and unhelpful (RQ2) when someone they knew died. Analysis of 454 thought units revealed three themes describing the function of Facebook communication when someone the participants knew died: news dissemination, preservation, and community. Each theme included several categories. Only a few responses were uncodable because participants did not answer the question fully enough to understand or seemed to not answer the question asked. See Table 1 for code summary and frequencies.

Table 1.

Helpful and unhelpful categories and subcategories with frequencies.

	Frequency	Helpful	Unhelpful
News dissemination
Information sharing and learning	43 (9%)	X
Misinformation	5 (1%)		X
Depersonalization	32 (7%)		X
Preservation
Memorialization	64 (14%)	X
Connection to the deceased	12 (3%)	X
Learning more about deceased	7 (2%)	X
On-going communication	7 (2%)	X
Existent/nonexistent conundrum	20 (4%)		X
“Pop-up” reminders	19 (4%)		X
Interference with grieving	33 (7%)		X
Community
Facilitation for connection	73 (16%)	X
Witness to grief	66 (15%)	X	X
Bandwagon mourners	8 (2%)		X
Space for support	45 (10%)	X
Challenge to privacy	14 (3%)		X

Note. A total of 454 thought units were analyzed. Frequency of thought units per category and subcategory is shown above. Percentage of total thought units per category and subcategory are shown in parentheses. Six thought units (1%) were coded as “other.” Themes are in boldface type, categories are in regular script, and subcategories are in italics.

News dissemination

The first theme to be identified was news dissemination. News dissemination described the way that Facebook served a function, similar to obituaries in a newspaper, that allowed people to share or learn information about a death. Three categories comprised the news dissemination theme: information sharing and learning, misinformation, and depersonalization.

Information sharing and learning

Participants reported that Facebook was helpful as a place where they could share or learn information about the death of someone they knew. Many participants indicated that Facebook was an especially useful tool in learning and sharing information about the death because Facebook made it possible to disseminate information to a large, geographically diverse group of people quickly and with minimal effort. As participant 59 explains, “It made it easier to get the details out to a wider audience via my page…and it saved me the trouble of making a lot more phone calls.” Participant 151 explains how sharing news of the person’s death on Facebook helped relieve a burden, “It helped to have friends alert each other—and made spreading the word much easier…I can’t imagine how it would have worked otherwise—I would have been overwhelmed with having to reach people.”

Thus, Facebook served the information sharing and learning functions of traditional newspaper obituaries but had the additional advantages of speed, ease of use, and extended reach. In this way, Facebook both confirms and reinforces the functionality of other digital media innovations related to grieving. Many funeral homes offer online guest books and podcasts of funeral services. However, these services differ insofar as they are structured specifically to encourage participation in the grieving process, whereas Facebook is not.

Misinformation

Although participants described ways that Facebook was helpful for sharing and learning information about the death of someone they knew, participants also noted how Facebook was unhelpful because it was a source of false and/or incomplete information about a person’s death. Participants experienced problems with incomplete information about a person’s death on Facebook, usually arising from partial or vague information posted in other users’ status updates. Participant 21 provides an example of how the speed and ease of information dissemination via Facebook were problematic in that they contributed to the spreading of false rumors about the person’s death, “… there were rumors going around on Facebook about his involvement with gangs which was not true and that bothered me ….” Participant 19 verifies this concern, “Rumors spread much quicker with Facebook.”

Depersonalization

In addition to Facebook serving as a source of misinformation about a person’s death, participants described another unhelpful experience on Facebook: depersonalization of the death of the person they knew. This depersonalization was felt because participants perceived Facebook activity surrounding the death as taking away from the personal and serious aspect of the death. Participant 64 provides an example of how, in some experiences, the sense of depersonalization was related to learning about the death through a computer-mediated channel rather than through an interpersonal conversation, “[It] took away the human touch. I learned of her death via Facebook before I was called in person.” Depersonalization was also described in experiences where Facebook was perceived as diminishing the gravitas of a person’s death. For example, “I feel it is too serious/private a matter to be thrown around on a social networking site” (Participant 9), and “… [it] seemed a bit cheesy and impersonal to post funeral details on a Facebook status” (Participant 59).

The widespread accessibility of information and emotions on Facebook, and the ability for many people to comment on the death, seemed to lessen the significance of the person’s passing for participants. Participant 4 explained, “Some wall posts I read were almost lacking respect for the dead, and the death of him became almost like a social event rather than a tragic scene…these people did manage to degrade the loss because of the more informal Facebook setting.” Other participants provided examples in describing how other Facebook users “didn’t take [the death] serious and posted stupid posts” (Participant 77), and that comments made on Facebook regarding the person’s death seemed “insincere…and mean” (Participant 161).

Preservation

The second theme to describe participants’ experiences on Facebook when someone they knew died involved preservation of the deceased. Preservation included experiences relating to protecting memories of the deceased and the continued presence of the deceased in the lives of others and on Facebook. The findings in this theme reinforced recent work by Kern et al. (2013) who argued that Facebook memorial pages provide a removed and mediated materialization of death. Experiences identified by participants to be helpful and unhelpful are included in the preservation theme. Three categories, two with subcategories, comprised the preservation theme: memorialization, connection to the deceased (subcategories: learning more about the deceased and ongoing communication), and existent/nonexistent conundrum (subcategories: “pop up” reminders and interference with grieving).

Memorialization

Participants reported that Facebook was helpful to them in that it served as a location to honor the deceased person through the posting of photos, stories, and remembrances. Participants appreciated that Facebook made it easy to share their memories of the person and read other people’s shared memories in order to memorialize the deceased. In many cases, participants described how Facebook pages that belonged to the deceased became a kind of memorial to the person. Illustrating this memorialization, Participant 34 expressed, “[Facebook] allowed everyone who knew him to play a part in honoring him,” Participant 167 wrote, “It was helpful to read wall posts from other people about his life…and to reminisce. In a way, it is nice to have the Facebook page continue on as a ‘memorial’ of sorts beyond the person’s death.”

Many participants’ descriptions of how Facebook functioned to help memorialize the deceased person included references to how valuable it was to share and view photos of the deceased person. Comments about the value of viewing photos of the deceased on Facebook, such as, “It’s been helpful because I have a place I can see pictures and remember her by” (Participant 211), exemplify this category. Participants also expressed appreciation of being able to share photos of the deceased on Facebook. Participant 87 provides an example:

I did find a kind of catharsis in posting a bunch of retrospective photos of him …. That was my way of honoring him in a public forum, which mattered to a lot to me …. I feel like I gave him a proper sendoff which transcended the handful of small town folk and family who attended his funeral.

In its wide reach and ease of photo posting, Facebook provided a way of viewing and sharing images of the deceased that would not be as possible in another format such as print newspapers.

Participants also described Facebook posts to other people or on the deceased person’s personal page annually on his or her death anniversary or birthday as a type of memorialization ritual. For example, “… on the anniversary of his passing, it is really touching to see how many people post on their Facebook something that mentions his name” (Participant 135). These experiences are representative of Facebook’s contribution in providing a public space to memorialize the dead and also serve a ritual function, providing a place for loved ones to return again and again similar to the way they would return to a gravesite to place flowers or mementos.

Connection to the deceased

Another theme illustrated how Facebook helped participants connect with the deceased person. For many participants, being able to still view the deceased person’s posts and photos put on Facebook before his or her passing fostered a sense of continued relational connection. Participant 53 reflected, “[The deceased’s Facebook page] was essentially his personality on the computer screen: pictures, interests, etc. His old statuses are like listening to his thoughts or having a conversation with him.” Participant 115 shared, “[Facebook] allows me to feel like I still have a connection to her life …. Anytime I want I can go and look at pictures of her doing things she loved and how she lived her life.” Constant access through Facebook made it easy to maintain communication and connection with the deceased.

Learning more about the deceased

Within the category of connection to the deceased, two subcategories were identified. The first subcategory described the way that participants felt connected to the deceased after the death because they learned more about them via Facebook. For example, Participant 134 noted, “… I learned a lot more about my friend through reading other people’s memories of her than I had had in just my own memories.” Participant 13 reflected, “[Facebook] was helpful because it gave me a chance to read many people’s perspective on the loss and hear stories about him I have never heard before.”

Ongoing communication

A second subcategory within the connection to the deceased category included participants’ experiences with using Facebook to communicate with the deceased person after his or her passing. In these experiences, participants reported posting messages to the deceased person on his or her Facebook wall, which fostered a sense of sustained connection to the deceased. Participant 178 described, “It gives me comfort to connect with [the deceased] and talk with [the deceased] in a more new aged way of praying. It makes me feel as though I can still talk to them.” Participant 164 shared, “Even though she has died, I still post on her wall, mostly that I miss her and love her very much …. As odd as this sounds I feel she can see her Facebook page in Heaven.” Others described how being able to address messages to the deceased on his or her Facebook wall provided a way to say “good-bye” to the person. Kern et al. (2013) and Williams and Merten (2009) described similar practices of using Facebook posts to communicate with the deceased in their content analyses of grief-related social media postings.

Existent/nonexistent conundrum

Participants reported that using Facebook created confusion between the deceased person’s death and the deceased person’s continued presence. Participants found this experience to be unhelpful and described how the continued existence of the deceased person’s Facebook page, and the related Facebook functions, created feelings of confusion, discomfort, sadness, and tension: “It seems as if he is still alive due to the fact that he has a Facebook page” (Participant 149), and “Having her listed as a ‘friend’ in my friends list with all of my living friends is kind of weird” (Participant 186). Other participants described how the continued presence of the deceased person’s Facebook page made that person seem as if he or she was frozen or trapped in a virtual world.

Unlike participants who described the sense that they could still connect to the deceased via Facebook as helpful, participants who described the existent/nonexistent conundrum were uncomfortable with the continued possible connection. For example, Participant 157 wrote, “It is a little strange…do you retain your ‘friendship’ when someone has passed or do you close that chapter? They sort of live on in this totally creepy virtual space, unsettling.” Participant 172 also revealed, “I feel like it’s made him a ghost. People are on Facebook all the time and to have his page still there is a little haunting.” Facebook created a space where the deceased could live on and participants could choose to maintain connections with them. Yet, it was also likened to a haunted house and deemed confusing, creepy, and unsettling. The notion of choice became apparent in the difference between perceiving continued connection to the deceased as helpful or unhelpful. Those who chose to connect with the deceased via Facebook found this function helpful, while those who questioned maintaining their connection or were confronted with reminders of the deceased while using Facebook considered these experiences unhelpful.

“Pop-up” reminders

Participants noted that “pop-ups,” which directly result from specific functions within Facebook, were especially unhelpful to them. These reminders allowed the deceased to unexpectedly “pop-up” during normal Facebook use and often occurred because Facebook displayed other users’ status updates about the deceased, photos of the deceased, or messages on the deceased person’s wall. For example, “Whenever someone tags her in a picture, it somehow ends up in my news feed. It’s things like this that are unexpected and therefore a little tough to handle when you’re just checking up on Facebook” (Participant 175). Participant 182 reflected, “… it’s…a little weird/sad when ‘you haven’t spoken to [the deceased] in a while’ messages for him pop-up ….” The unexpectedness of these reminders seemed intrusive to many participants.

Interference with grieving

A second subcategory within the existent/nonexistence conundrum, which can be interpreted as an effect of the reminders Facebook enabled, included participants’ descriptions of how experiences on Facebook interfered with the grief process. Participants described how experiences on Facebook prolonged the emotional intensity of the loss and made it more difficult to “move on.” As Participant 53 reflected, “… [Facebook] makes the pain fresh and it makes it harder to move on because it is so easy to access.” Participant 18 noted, “I think [Facebook] has kept people’s emotions alive a bit too much, and has prevented many people, including myself, in the coping process.”

Community

The third theme involved the sense of community. The community theme encapsulated experiences related to the participants’ connection and communication with people other than the deceased. Participants identified these experiences as helpful and unhelpful. Five categories comprised the community theme, that is, facilitation for connection, space for support, witness to grief (subcategory: bandwagon mourners), and challenges to privacy.

Facilitation for connection

The first category within the community theme included participants’ descriptions of the ways Facebook helped them make connections with other mourners and to feel they were not alone in their grief. Participants identified these experiences as helpful. As Participant 10 shared, “[Facebook] helped me to reach out to my friends’ friends and family…I was far way at University when he died, [Facebook] helped me feel more connected.” Participant 33 also illustrated this theme, “Facebook become an experience in which people reconnect and come together again over a sad occurrence.”

Space for support

The second category included in the community theme was comprised of experiences with sending, seeking, and gaining social support via Facebook following a death. Participant 131 reported, “You can write a short status update about ‘RIP’ and get social support from people.” Participant 160 revealed, “When people reached out to me with their condolences over Facebook, it made me feel better about the loss in general.” Facebook offered an instant means for seeking and offering often-needed social support in a digital environment. As participant 151 reflected, “It was overwhelming in a way but also comforting; I was receiving hundreds of messages of sympathy and requests to be friends. People were reaching out in a very emotional and immediate way.”

Witness to grief

The third category identified as part of the community theme was a direct result of the open, inter-connected web that Facebook created for users. Having an open community offered a space for the positive functions of news sharing, preservation, and connection previously discussed through making people witness to each other’s grief, feelings, and experiences. Facebook functioned as a type of public journal or diary in which people could read how others were grieving and could express and display their own thoughts and feelings. The witness to grief experience of communicating about death on Facebook is different from the memorialization function because, as a place of memorialization, Facebook acted as a location to remember the deceased. In the witness to grief experience, Facebook acted as a type of public meeting place for mourners to share their experiences with each other. Participants reported witness to grief experiences as both helpful and unhelpful.

Helpful witness to grief experiences were those that allowed the participant to appreciate what the deceased person meant to others, to know how others were grieving, and to have an outlet for expressing their own feelings. Participant 13 provided an example: “[Facebook] was helpful because gave me a chance to read many people’s perspective on the loss …. It allowed me to have a little insight on how his daughter felt and what she was still going through months after.” Participant 130 also noted, “Honestly it is very hard to talk about the matter but with Facebook I can express my feelings without [orally] expressing it.”

Unhelpful witness to grief experiences occurred when there were misunderstandings of expressions of grief or when participants found it painful to read others’ posts related to the death of the person they knew. For example, Participant 167 wrote, “I got perturbed at one of my Aunts telling my cousin that the loss of his wife won’t get an easier Even though I’m sure she was trying to be comforting in some strange way, I don’t understand why people say things like that.” Participant 141 noted, “It was difficult for me to see people leaving comments on his wall and saying that they miss and love him.”

Bandwagon mourners

A specific aspect of witness to grief involved bandwagon mourners, which participants found to be particularly unhelpful. Bandwagon mourners were seen as the mourning equivalent of bandwagon fans. This participant-created label included individuals who joined in the Facebook activities surrounding the loss of the deceased, but their actions were perceived as offensive or inappropriate because they were seen as disconnected from the deceased or not central enough to the events to warrant their level of Facebook involvement. For example, Participant 130 reported, “Just like there are so many bandwagon fans, it pisses me off when other people dedicate their statuses to him when they don’t even know him.” Bandwagon mourners were often perceived as people trying to gain undeserved attention and sympathy. For example, Participant 9 wrote, “It repulses me to see people sensationalizing deaths on Facebook only to gain attention/pity for themselves (when they clearly did not know the deceased very well).” In describing bandwagon mourners, participants described themselves as witnesses to grief they felt was inappropriate.

Challenge to privacy

Challenge to privacy was the fourth category included in the community theme and was identified as unhelpful. The experiences included in this category demonstrated participants’ discomfort and uncertainty regarding the protection of private information and privacy boundaries on Facebook after the person they knew died. Participant 17 wrote, “My friend is a private person so she didn’t tell very many people that her grandfather had died, so it was hard to decide what/how much to write [on Facebook].” Participant 102 provided another example, “Maybe it would have been better for the tragedy to have been more private. Should something be kept within the family or those he knows well, not just anyone with access to Facebook.” Participants’ experiences of Facebook posing a challenge to privacy again highlight how the functionality of Facebook as a sharing mechanism presents both opportunities and drawbacks for mourners. On one hand, it offers a means of online support and a way to experience the grieving process via a digital medium. On the other hand, decisions on what to share and the level of self-disclosure appropriate to the situation can become challenging.

Discussion

The results of the current study validate assumptions and evidence that Facebook is both helpful and unhelpful to the grief process. While it may encourage and offer a space for coping, it may also produce a coping paradox (Dolan & Ender, 2008). In other words, it may help reduce feelings of distress while also becoming a source of additional stress (Dolan & Ender, 2008). Each of the major themes within the results exemplifies the simultaneously helpful and unhelpful nature of Facebook, so the following discussion aims to highlight the paradoxical nature of each.

Making sense of the coping paradox on Facebook

In line with the DPM, despite being used at one’s free will, Facebook seems to complicate the ability for bereaved individuals to cope on their own terms. People are subject to surprise encounters with other bereaved individuals or even with the deceased’s online presence. They also become witness to information, emotions, and experiences that they may not wish to encounter online. Facebook then confronts bereaved individuals with the loss when they are primarily engaged in restoration-focused coping or with restoration when they are primarily engaged in loss-focused coping, which may make them move toward the extremes of confrontation or avoidance (of either orientation) and lead to maladaptation (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). The current results highlight the coping paradox Facebook creates in regard to the news and information the bereaved receive, the preservation of the deceased, and the connection and community this social medium allows.

News dissemination

The contemporaneous nature of Facebook allows for both benefits and drawbacks in information dissemination. On one hand, the capacity of Facebook to reach a wide range of people alleviates the burden on loved ones to individually contact others via more traditional means (i.e., in person, phone calls, etc.) and the need to repeatedly relive and retell details about the death. However, this approach has potential disadvantages for those informed in this way and for the loved ones who might be called upon to manage such information. As noted, the potential for misinformation is high when multiple people comment on the situation, and there is no safeguard ensuring that information is accurate or shared with good intentions. Furthermore, the format of Facebook dictates that news of a death is included alongside a newsfeed of unrelated updates, memes, web links, photographs, and notifications. Thus, as Roberts (2006) warned, the nature of various Facebook functions increases the possibility that one might learn of a death without warning and be caught off guard by the news. This may depersonalize the loss experience and compound the pain and impact of the death. In these ways, Facebook as a method of reporting shares some of the inherent dangers of the 24-hr instant news cycle (Rosenberg & Feldman, 2008) and may create more loss-oriented stressors. News and misinformation may spread virally quickly, thus making it difficult, if not impossible, to manage, correct, or retract such information. As a result, there is no way to control for and contextualize death-related information for grieving Facebook users, which could lead to misinformation, rumors, gossip, and any subsequent negative consequences. Hogan, De Santis, Demi, Cowles, and Ross (1994) found that rumors and gossip within adolescents’ social circles hindered the bereavement process, and Facebook may increase the likelihood of these rumors/gossip for grieving adolescents as well as adults.

Preservation

Interestingly, the subcategories related to connection to the deceased mirrored the very functionality of Facebook for the living in two distinct ways. First, Facebook is a means of interaction and connection, allowing people to reach across time and geographic space to establish, reinforce, or rekindle friendships. Our results suggest that the relational functions of Facebook extend to relationships with the deceased person. Rather than signing a disembodied memorial guest book, visitors to a deceased person’s page literally get to share in the deceased person’s created world, amid posts, photos, jokes, likes and dislikes, and communicate with that person as if he or she is still there. Facebook acts as an additional site for material and affective preservation of the dead (Gorer, 1965). Second, Facebook is an important means of self-disclosure and self-presentation (Kim & Lee, 2011; Ledbetter et al., 2011). As with the living (Chou & Edge, 2012), the self-disclosure on Facebook by both the deceased before death and the deceased person’s social network members following the death offers a window into the deceased person’s world and personality. In sum, Facebook offers mourners an online space for visitation, remembrance, and connection with the deceased that may not otherwise be possible, particularly with such immediacy and permanence. As Kern et al. (2013) note, “Similar to tombs in the offline world, memorial pages for the dead in Facebook provide a place to ‘visit’ with dead loved ones, but unlike the former, these online places of remembrance provide platform where individual conversations with the dead are permanently recorded and publicly displayed” (p. 8).

The open nature of a Facebook page means that the deceased person’s presence continues post death. Facebook allows or sometimes pushes users to (re)connect with the deceased, which can extend and reopen the grieving process for the loved ones. This maintained connection (and feelings surrounding existence/nonexistence), particularly by way of “pop-up” reminders of the deceased, could introduce more restoration-oriented stressors (e.g., confusion or ambiguity), to the grief process (traditionally conceptualized as a means of obtaining closure or “moving on”). This is similar to the presence–absence paradox seen for people experiencing ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is a loss that remains unclear (Boss, 2007) and involves either physical absence with psychological presence or psychological absence with physical presence of the lost person (Boss, 1999, 2004). Although the notion of ambiguous loss is typically assigned to nondeath losses (e.g., kidnapping, prisoners of war, and divorce), Facebook may make death losses seem more ambiguous. The deceased person is neither here nor gone; they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time (Gibson, 2007). This could add confusion and/or barriers to grief, as thinking with the both/and perspective that encourages resilience during ambiguous loss (Boss, 1999, 2004, 2007) may interfere with grieving a death loss (e.g., encouraging extreme avoidance and denial or extreme preservation). Although the capacity of Facebook to reduce uncertainty about the death (e.g., information dissemination) has been noted in the current study and in previous research (see Palmieri, Prestano, Gandley, Overton, & Zhang, 2012), it may also increase uncertainty (e.g., existence/nonexistence).

Facebook may create added difficulties for the bereaved and interfere with the grief process. However, contemporary theories of grief have moved away from notions of “letting go” and tend to focus on continuing bonds (Neimeyer, 2001) and redefining and sustaining relationships symbolically, spiritually, or in memory, through shared stories with family and friends (Attig, 1996; Hedtke & Winslade, 2003). Facebook may offer a more normalized space for maintaining this connection, thus helping the bereaved cope with restoration-oriented stressors and facilitating grief. According to DeGroot (2012), Facebook users continued bonds with the deceased by posting emotional expressions, posting memories, noting the deceased’s presence, providing updates for the deceased, indicating appreciation for the deceased, making promises or requests to the deceased, and mentioning an eventual reunion. This communication may help maintain the relationship with the deceased (DeGroot, 2012), yet it may also enable more extreme forms of preservation that can complicate mourning and lead to pathological grief (Gorer, 1965). The ability to enshrine the deceased indefinitely could lead to more restoration-oriented stressors and oscillations toward extreme loss avoidance (i.e., denial) that can negatively impact the grief process (Stroebe & Schut, 2010). Much of what occurs on Facebook is not under the user’s control, so she or he is subject to constant reminders, even when it is not desired. Facebook then has both positive and negative qualities related to the grief process and maintaining bonds.

Community

Facebook introduces an open space for people to connect with others, seek and offer support, express grief, and establish a grief community across time and space. Research has shown that verbally sharing stories (Gale, 1992; Rando, 1986), expressively writing (Pennebaker, 1997; Pennebaker & Chung, 2007), and blogging (Boniel-Nissim & Barak, 2013; Rains & Keating, 2011) about distressing events can be therapeutic. The ability to share thoughts and feelings with others about grief and loss, as opposed to internalizing emotions about loneliness or fear of death, has been linked with positive coping outcomes (Rask, Kaunonen, & Paunonen-Ilmonen, 2002). Facebook offers this opportunity to express emotions and make sense of trauma, which may help users let go of painful memories and move on (Koenig Kellas, Trees, Schrodt, LeClair-Underberg, & Willer, 2010). Also in terms of online communication, obtaining support through blog comments has been found to be helpful for health bloggers (Rains & Keating, 2011) and people who blog about emotional difficulties (Boniel-Nissim & Barak, 2013). Positive effects are most significant when others can comment on the posts, as this is perceived as supportive for bloggers (Boniel-Nissim & Barak, 2013), particularly when they do not have off-line support available (Rains & Keating, 2011).

The benefits of social support have been well documented (see MacGeorge, Feng, & Burleson, 2011), and social support is particularly important to grief resolution (Kamm & Vandenberg, 2001). The current data suggest that Facebook offers a substantial and instant means for supportive communication during bereavement. However, previous studies have had conflicting findings regarding the function of social media for forming and maintaining connections among mourners. Kern et al. (2013) and Williams and Merten (2009) have suggested that Facebook and other social media sites do little to foster connections. Our findings, on the other hand, echo the findings of Carroll and Landry (2010) and Sanderson and Cheong (2010) and suggest that Facebook does connect the bereaved community and may be a beneficial tool for providing and receiving support and offering a space to jointly, actively, and expressively grieve.

Paradoxically, the current findings provide evidence that the unrestricted interactional nature of Facebook can also bring forth negative issues for those it is connecting, particularly in terms of privacy, boundaries, and negative interpretations of others. Researchers have investigated the challenges Facebook can pose to privacy management and the ways Facebook users attempt to manage their privacy online and off-line (Child & Westerman, 2013; Christofides, Muise, & Desmarais, 2012; Waters & Ackerman, 2011). Our results suggest that Facebook may pose an acute challenge to privacy ownership and management during bereavement, which could both add loss-oriented stressors to the grief experience. Anyone who has access to the deceased person’s page, even if they do not have a close relationship to the deceased, can remark about the death or the deceased and/or view others’ comments, which opens the door for bandwagon mourners, also previously termed “emotional rubberneckers” (DeGroot, 2014, p. 209). This can be seen as a challenge to the ownership of grief as well as interpersonal communication, as the open nature of the site enables blurred boundaries around access to feelings online. DeGroot (2014) notes that emotional rubberneckers often have positive agendas when participating in the online grief community. The current study suggests that even if well intentioned, bandwagon mourners (or emotional rubberneckers) may not help those more connected to the deceased. The data provide a glimpse into these issues of privacy and communicating about death on Facebook, yet research focusing on privacy management, strategies for boundary negotiation, and effects of blurred boundaries when communicating about death through social media is necessary.

Also due to the open, social, and immediate nature of Facebook, some personal expressions (and information) may be shared that are interpreted as inappropriate or insincere, thus leading to pain when reading others’ posts (e.g., unhelpful witness to grief), annoyance when interpreting others as disingenuous (e.g., bandwagon mourners), and perceptions of others minimizing the loss by posting feelings online (e.g., depersonalization). These added loss-oriented stressors could complicate grief, as the insensitivity of others can hinder the bereavement process (Hogan, De Santis, Demi, Cowles, & Ross, 1994). Facebook connects the bereaved to others in their community, both sensitive and insensitive, making the social context of grief even more public and communal (Walter et al., 2012). As such, Facebook enables more public viewing of differential grief (i.e., the tendency to grieve losses in different ways and at different times), which can lead to increased pain and conflict (Gilbert, 1996). A grieving individual might assume another person is grieving too much or too little, based on where they witness the other in their oscillations between confrontation and avoidance, which can negatively impact adjustment, particularly interpersonally (Stroebe & Schut, 2010).

Limitations

The current study was successful in producing information regarding the helpful and unhelpful nature of Facebook for the bereaved. However, there are also limitations that may impede the generalizability of the findings. First, although the sample is reflective of Facebook users, it is limited in diversity. Furthermore, because we did not collect a random sample, there could be inherent differences in Facebook users who chose to participate and those who did not (even when both groups have likely experienced the death of someone they know on Facebook). Those who volunteered may be more comfortable sharing their views and more likely to communicate about grief online; thus, we may have a highly expressive group of participants. Second, the current study involves retrospective accounts of experiences on Facebook. This approach was chosen in order to provide an alternate perspective from existing content analyses of online communication and comments. However, participant recall may not be complete. There may be helpful and unhelpful grief experiences on Facebook that went unremarked upon, and actual versus recalled communication may not always be consistent.

Conclusion

The form and function of Facebook as a site for connection offer many benefits and potential drawbacks for those who experience the loss of a friend or loved one. Unlike sites that are specifically designed to facilitate the mourning process, Facebook’s function is to first and foremost provide a means of social interaction. This article considers what unique issues are created when a friend or loved one dies and his or her online presence remains.

On one hand, Facebook provides a practical means for information dissemination and connection that can benefit users and provide social support. Further, Facebook can become a site of visitation and remembrance through which users can process and better understand and deal with their grief both individually and collectively. Facebook interfaces personal mourning processes with public grief expression, creating new forms of grief communication based on mediated norms of sharing information and experiences. In these ways, Facebook complements rather than challenges traditional experiences of bereavement and provides another layer to the grieving process, which mourners can incorporate into their experiences of loss. On the other hand, the very nature of Facebook as a point of connection and ongoing interaction presents grievers with uncomfortable dilemmas in terms of gaining information, connecting with others, and remembering the dead. The public nature of the site means that rituals, behaviors, and symbolic gestures usually made privately or semi-privately (e.g., at a funeral or wake) are shared with a wide range of individuals, many of whom do not know each other and some of whom may not even know the deceased personally. Furthermore, what is shared and seen on Facebook is not under the complete control of users, even given the ability to control privacy settings, thus taking away their agency in their grieving process. This loss of control pervades the current results and is worthy of future research.

Overall, the benefits and challenges to traditional forms of grieving and connecting that Facebook creates makes studying Facebook as a source for coping and support paradoxes interesting and important. As social media communication continues to become a more prominent part of our lives—and deaths—the need to better understand the personal and relational implications of it also continues.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

The authors dedicate this article in the loving memory of Dr. Adi Thelen.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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