University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
kaleer@umich.edu
Death and the emotional aftermath of losing loved ones is a natural human experience. But the digitalization of grief is, to say the least, nuanced. Digital grieving involves using social media and other digital platforms to mediate, amplify, and shape this emotional expression. This can be beneficial, such as participating in acts of memorialization and remembrance, evoking community support, providing access to information and resources, and allowing emotional release or expression. Such digital practices around grief give users agency over the narrative of their loved one’s journey to the end, but also over their emotional expression and management. Nevertheless, such articulations of grieving online bring forth a range of reactions and responses from those bearing witness. From igniting collective support and candid conversations about the experience of aging, dying, and grieving, to public shaming of such content being “weird to post.”
I provide an overview of how social media mediates, amplifies, and shapes grief expression in our digital era. Overall, social media transforms grief from a private to collective public acknowledgement and engagement, and even a symbolic experience that is influencing cultural narratives and coping mechanisms.
Memorialization and Remembrance
Discussing bereavement and death can be uncomfortable, especially within Western communities that don’t consider or incorporate public grieving in their practices. Oftentimes, announcing a loved one’s death is the reason for users to post their grief online (King & Carter, 2022; Murrell et al., 2023). These types of displays of grief are often engaged with across generations of users. There has been limited research to evaluate how grief is expressed across platforms and engaged differently based on generations’ engagement. Nevertheless, young people (teens and young adults) have been the center of research on grief and media given that they are digitally saturated. Hoffman et al. (2021) found that young grievers noted how expressing their grief through social media provided them opportunities to receive supportive comments, evoke online family and friends to share memories, and even find comfort in visiting their loved one’s social media account. Additionally, though death and grieving online once seemed taboo, there are numerous cases where these expressions are explored in heightened social and political climates, such as memorializing victims of police brutality through hashtags and digital tributes (e.g., #SayTheirNames), public mourning for celebrities and cultural icons, and collective grieving following large-scale tragedies like natural disasters or mass shootings, where online spaces serve as platforms for solidarity, activism, and remembrance. Highlighting how death and grief, both personally and online, intertwine individual experiences with collective ones.
Collective Discourse
Organizations like EndWell Project, Compassion & Choices, and Grief Recovery Method not only provide resources for loved ones navigating grief and end-of-life, but also leverage social media to expand their outreach, offering both support materials and digital connections for individuals on their grief journeys. These efforts extend beyond healthcare organizations to collaborations with media programs, content creators, and celebrities. Andrew Garfield, for instance, spoke openly about his grief following his mother’s passing in several interviews related to his film We Live in Time (2024), reflecting on how the film’s exploration of death reshaped his understanding of mourning. His insights were shared across various end-of-life organizations’ social media platforms, such as the EndWell Project’s Instagram, and were even incorporated into educational programming like Sesame Street, later posted and engaged with online via social media and Sesame Workshop’s YouTube channel.
These types of social media posts and online discussions of grief not only provide resources but also have assisted in individuals’ own digital grief expression, as evident in engagement like reposting, commenting, and sharing. Though opinions and hesitations remain about what constitutes “too much” digital grieving—such as posting consistent updates about a loved one’s final moments, recording oneself crying, or sharing intimate photos—these forms of social media expression are still relatively new. This underscores the need to explore the psychological and interpersonal motivations behind such media engagement, particularly during emotionally heightened experiences such as grief.
Media Psychology Approach
A media psychology approach is crucial for examining the psychological motivations and impacts of digital grieving, as well as evaluating how social media provides users with agency and support during these significant moments in their lives. As King and Carter (2022) note, while many recognize the five stages of grief, the role of social media in this process isn’t holistically considered. Social media could assist in the grieving process by evoking community, remembrance, and honoring, and presenting a sense of connection and mobility that might not be in people’s day-to-day lives. Or, it might hinder the process, potentially keeping people stuck in a particular stage of grief through continuous engagement with publicly displaying their emotions. As more people integrate social media into their lives, it is essential to assess how social media shapes their exposure and management of death and the grieving process—especially as social norms and behaviors around digital mourning continue to evolve (Graf-Drasch et al., 2024). Lastly, it would be insightful to explore the cultural implications, differences, and expressions of grief, as various communities engage in unique grieving practices that may shape the extent of their digital expressions and interactions with mourning.
References
Graf-Drasch, V., Gimpel, H., Bonenberger, L., & Blaß, M. (2023). The influence of social norms on expressing sympathy in social media. Journal of Information Technology, 39(3), 417–440. https://doi.org/10.1177/02683962231171401
Hoffman, B. L., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Sidani, J. E., Miller, E., & Primack, B. A. (2020). “Their page is still up”: Social media and coping with loss. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 26(5), 451–468. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2020.1820227
King, R., & Carter, P. (2022). Exploring young millennials’ motivations for grieving death through social media. Journal of Technology in Behavioral Science, 7(4), 567–577. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41347-022-00275-1
Murrell, A. J., Jamie, K., & Penfold-Mounce, R. (2021). ‘it was the easiest way to kind of announce it’: Exploring death announcements on social media through a dramaturgical lens. Mortality, 28(3), 411–428. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2021.1946496
