Grieving processes and rituals have perpetuated throughout vastly different cultures for thousands of years. But in today's age of technology, some aspects of dealing with death have taken an unexpected turn. With the use of social networking sites and other innovations, people can now keep their loved ones present online long after they have passed away.
Facebook.com recently began a policy to standardize the ways in which people can utilize the pages of their deceased family members by providing a form that people can fill out in order to take over the profile of someone who has died. Myspace.com instated a similar process in 2006 with Mydeathspace.com, where the profiles of deceased members of Myspace.com can be kept as a memorial.
Michael Kearl, professor of sociology at Trinity University and author of "Endings: A Sociology of Death and Dying," explained that the process of mourning has evolved along with technological advancements.
"What happened in the 19th century when you lost your child, to preserve that memory you used photography, and, up until the 1970s and '80s, that was probably one of the top photographic genres in this country," Kearl said. "Now what's being preserved are these cyber identities where one can continue to exist in this new medium."
According to Kearl, the modernization of society has diminished the number of confidants an individual has. Therefore losing a loved one — particularly while he or she is still young — is more difficult than it was in the past.
"When a death occurs… I think that grief has been even more intensified," Kearl said. "People find the need to hold on."
Amelia Bonsey, a student at Orange Coast College, explained that after her close friend died in high school, his Myspace.com page was used as a forum for friends to share photos and final words.
"It was an outlet for people to write messages and have last thoughts and last things that they wanted to say," Bonsey said. "I could see how in some cases it kind of in the long run keeps things open that should be closed … but I liked it, I like being able to keep looking back."
Bonsey said that one reason the site was useful was because no one knew her friend's password, so people could send private messages and the site was preserved as he had left it. She added that if it had been taken over by his family, for example, she does not think it would have been as special.
"I think that had a big role in why I thought it was positive because it was still private, it was still his, and no one could go on and make it a memorial site and read all of the private things people had to say," she said.
In addition to dealing with the grieving process, online resources can be useful for organizing friends of the deceased for a common goal. In December 2006, Lily Karian, a freshman at Tufts, committed suicide. Her friends and family created a Facebook group in her memory and later used this group as a forum to organize a suicide prevention fundraiser, Walk for Lily, in her memory. The walk raised over $41,000.
"If it weren't for the [Facebook] page, we wouldn't have been able to get people together and explain what we were doing to raise money and mobilize the efforts," Max Chalkin, a senior who organized the walk, said.
Chalkin, however, feels that the use of personal profiles should be limited after death.
"In terms of leaving people's personal pages up … after they were to die for instance … I don't think that's a good thing and the reason is because these pages are active … embodiments of a person's life," Chalkin said. "Facebook pages are very personal, social, living, changing objects, and when someone passes away and they're not around anymore it just seems a little perverse to me to have an online living, changing embodiment of the person when the person in fact is not around."
Social networking sites are only one of the ways in which people's "cyber identities" can be preserved. Recent years have also seen the emergence of companies that will send out messages and digital wills for the deceased. One such site, Lastmessagesclub.co.uk, allows people to arrange for certain messages and last thoughts to be sent to loved ones via e-mail after they die.
"[These] cyber selves can now, because of some companies, communicate with the living," Kearl said. "You can continue to be a player even after you're dead."
Kearl explained that one reason for the emergence of such sites may be a lack of traditional grieving methods.
"I think what's important that is going on is that we've seen in this country the disappearance of the bereavement role," Kearl said. "We've also seen a disappearance of cultural recipes for mourning and, up until fairly recently, I think grief has largely become disenfranchised."
Kearl also pointed to the decreased importance of religion in society as another reason why grieving has changed. "In the past, death used to mean entry into some other phase of being," he said. "Now death is often understood as simply an exit."
In addition to the changing role of religion, an overall lack of community may make it more difficult for people to express their grief publicly. Private forums allow for people to grieve privately and in their own way.
"Grieving people make other people uneasy," Kearl said. "We've become so narcissistic in our individualism that we've kind of lost sight of how thoroughly our identities are interwoven with others."
