Death in the Age of the Internet

CEBU, Philippines —  Death is a serious matter. Parents shall make sure that their growing kids understand that. Especially in this day and age of high communication technology, the kids are liable to mistake dying and death itself as mere game to play.

Nicole Kobie, in an article at www.pcauthority.com.au notes that the social networks are now dealing with death too, with new digital rituals for grieving online. Kobie predicts that “the dead will overrun Facebook. Memorials won’t be cut from stone anymore, but carved out in pixels.” She cites expert views to support her own:

Online grief. The web can open up safe spaces for people to grieve. Online communities can give support to what university professor Panagiotis Pentaris calls “disenfranchised grief.” “Digital communities offer an audience that you can’t find elsewhere,” Pentaris said. “They offer the opportunity to become an acknowledged griever... to express those emotions that you can’t express elsewhere.”

Digital memorials.  Stacey Pitsillides, a lecturer in design, tells of one family who lost their son to cancer. The father, who’s games developer, created a game called “That Dragon, Cancer” to remember his son by. “They made the experience into an environment that people could navigate, to try to understand that kind of loss,” says Pitsillides. “It’s a mix between a game, a memorial, and a narrative.”

Another case was Author Terry Pratchett’s death years ago that spurred an e-petition from fans begging Death – a frequent character in Pratchett’s books – to bring him back to life. Despite the 35,000 signatures, it didn’t work to resurrect Pratchett, but it did give fans a way to show their grief in a collective way. “It was so appropriate for who Terry Pratchett was,” Pitsillides said. “He’d have loved it.”

Letting go. Social networks have made ways for other developments on the matter of death, such as suggesting dead friends for the living to follow or highlighting loved ones who have just passed away in “year in review” videos. Rather awkward to some, but others don’t mind the reminder, and even use social networks to keep ‘talking’ to dead friends, sending them messages as though the person who has passed on will appreciate it.

“When I pray, I don’t know if she hears me,” someone says. “But when I write to her on Facebook, she hears me. I know it’s not logical, but that’s how it feels to me.”

Death and technology.  The death of a loved one is no doubt one of the most emotional experiences many people will have. And people use social media to express themselves – Facebook et al are inundated with posts of positive moments – such as births and weddings. While social media “wasn’t designed with death in mind,” it shouldn’t come as a surprise that posts expressing sorrow over a loved one’s death will soon rise to the level of the happy posts.

Kobie observes that certain websites “are getting better at dealing with death” and new social networks are now building it into their design. New ideas will keep coming up to keep loved ones’ digital memory alive. It’s not a bad thing – but there’s the risk that technology, if unabated, will make death feel like a “virtuality” and not a reality that it really is.