Mourning 2.0—Continuing Bonds Between the Living and the Dead on Facebook

Irwin, Melissa D.

doi:10.1177/0030222815574830

Cited by 45 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The experience of bereaved young people having unintended connections with the deceased was described in ten articles (Normand, Silverman & Nickman, 1996;Field, Gao & Paderna, 2005;Packman, Horsely, Davies & Kramer, 2006;Brewer & Sparkes, 2011;Foster et al, 2011;Wood, Byram, Gosling & Stokes, 2012;Root & Exline, 2014;Hansen, Sheehan, Stephenson & Mayo, 2015;Irwin, 2015;Simpkins & Myers-Coffman, 2017). This is the idea that bereaved young people often feel a sense of connection with the deceased, through natural and spontaneous occurrences.…”

Section: Unintended Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…posts that were written by bereaved friends to the deceased were analysed (Irwin, 2015). As such, the majority were aged between 18 to 25 years old, and commonly wrote to the deceased to describe spontaneous visits and unprovoked experiences or messages which were interpreted to be from the deceased.…”

Section: Unintended Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Until recent years, the dominant ideology regarding grief and bereavement emphasised the need for people to engage in 'a very distinctive psychic task […] namely to detach the memories and expectations of the deceased' (Freud, 1957, p.96). As such, mourning was focused upon a process of relinquishing bonds with the deceased during a specific period following the death of a loved one (Gorer, 1967;Irwin, 2015). An inability to sever bonds with the deceased was considered 'symptomatic of pathology' and hinder the person's ability to develop new relationships (Silverman, Klass & Nickman, 1996, p.5).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is argued that 'people are changed by the experience [of bereavement], they do not get over it, and part of the change is a transformed but continuing relationship with the deceased' (Silverman et al, 1996, p.19). Consequently, bereaved people do not engage in a process of disconnecting with the deceased but, instead, develop new and alternative bonds with them (Irwin, 2015). With this in mind, a pivotal element of loss and bereavement is to construct a new and alternative identity of the deceased, thus enabling a continued presence within the lives of survivors (Madison, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Continuing Bonds With Children and Bereaved Young People: A Narrative Review

et al. 2019

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Background Finding alternative ways to reconnect with the deceased is a common feature of bereavement. However, it is currently unclear how bereaved children or young people establish and develop a “continuing bond” with deceased family members. Aim To investigate how bereaved young people continue bonds with deceased family members. Design A systematically conducted narrative review was conducted using six electronic databases: CINAHL, Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, PubMed, and BNI. Limiters were applied to peer-reviewed articles published in English. Studies were assessed for methodological quality using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tools. Results Twenty articles were included in the review. Three overarching themes were generated: unintended connections, intended connections, and internalized connections. Conclusion Bereaved young people establish a sense of connection with deceased family members through various means (e.g., unprovoked or spontaneous reminders, physical mementos, internalized memories). Some connections are unintended and occur spontaneously. However, other young people will specifically seek ways to remember the deceased to provide a sense of enduring connection.

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Section: Unintended Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Unintended Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Continuing Bonds With Children and Bereaved Young People: A Narrative Review

et al. 2019

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“…Temporally, from the moment of death and years after, social network sites can help construct and maintain the identity and the biography of the dead person through the provision of personal and shared memories, allowing friends to continue their bonds with the deceased -even to the point where the deceased is kept alive in "perpetuity" (Dilmaç, 2016;Irwin, 2015;Kern, Forman, & Gil-Egui, 2013). On social media, the memory of the departed, Dilmaç argues, which is by definition part of the past, is changed into a "dynamic memory" which is constantly updated (Dilmaç, 2016, p. 9 Psychologically and socially, memorialised profile pages and R.I.P pages can provide the bereft with a sense of connectedness with the community of mourners, and help in the process of sense making, providing communal spaces for expressions of sadness, shock, loss, and love (Carroll & Landry, 2010;Giaxoglou, 2015;Hård Af Segerstad & Kasperowski, 2015;Williams & Merten, 2009).…”

Section: Mourning and Parasocial Grieving On Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Death and Communal Mass-Mourning: Vin Diesel and the Remembrance of Paul Walker

Klastrup

2018

Social Media + Society

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This article examines Vin Diesel's use of his public Facebook Page to mourn the loss of his friend and co-actor Paul Walker in the period from 2013-2015. It discusses how Vin Diesel performed his grief and how his mourning process was communally reflected and repeated by both Vin Diesel and Walker fans, who used Vin Diesel's page to share and verbalise their own feelings of loss in a both public and safe space. An analysis of Vin Diesel's own status updates and 1800 comments reacting to three popular status updates related to the death of Paul Walk posted over the course of more than a year show that commentary was used to make condolences to both Vin Diesel and Walker's familes and to affectively express the users' immediate feelings, both verbally and through the use of emojis. However, over time, both the form and intensity of expression of both Vin Diesel and his followers changed, pointing to the need to further study celebrity mourning processes on social media over extended periods of time.

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Community psychology, digital technology, and loss: Remembrance activities of young adults who have experienced the death of a close friend

Stein

Majcher

Froemming

et al. 2019

Community & Applied Soc Psy

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We argue for community psychology to include digital communications technology in research on ways that the social environment shapes fundamental human experiences. We present a qualitative study that examined the narrative accounts of 20 young adults who experienced the death of a close friend to describe both traditional and digital forms of remembrance in coping with loss. Findings suggest that young adults' activities both online and offline were intended to acknowledge the loss, exchange social support, create and sustain memories of their deceased friend, and facilitate continued communication with the deceased. Participants described both costs and benefits to their real and virtual remembrance activities. Findings illustrate ways that the study of digital technology adds to our understanding of grief and bereavement and contributes to dominant cultural narratives about coping with death. Implications of findings for research in community psychology are discussed.

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Mourning 2.0—Continuing Bonds Between the Living and the Dead on Facebook

Cited by 45 publications

References 40 publications

Continuing Bonds With Children and Bereaved Young People: A Narrative Review

Continuing Bonds With Children and Bereaved Young People: A Narrative Review

Death and Communal Mass-Mourning: Vin Diesel and the Remembrance of Paul Walker

Community psychology, digital technology, and loss: Remembrance activities of young adults who have experienced the death of a close friend

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