Social Media's Impact on Mourning and Grief

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The world has never had the technological advances that we have today. Naturally, the way people use the new social networks , such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on has evolved over the years. A couple years ago, when a tragedy unfortunately occurred and death was part of it, there was an comprehensible mourning period in which those affected would close themselves out from the outside world. Today death, a physical and spiritual occurrence, has also become social. We live in a society in which the passing of someone causes a great disruption in social networks. Within minutes hundreds of people are posting their condolences on Facebook, and hash tagging on Twitter. The negative affect social media has on mourners far exceeds the positive. The …show more content…

As Sarah Murray claims in the article, When Mourning Goes Viral, “ The 2.5 million tweets hours after the death of Steve Jobs shows how profoundly social media has transformed mourning. Social networks have created a competition to see who who writes the first or best comment. Everyone wants to be part of that infamous “Top Ten Tweet List” after the passing of someone. This has caused a desensitization in individuals. Now, its not so much the pain they feel to send condolences or create a tribute page, but a sense of obligation. Society has put so much emphasis on the way others view us that many of us have forgotten what it is like to truly feel the emotion we are attempting to express , whether it be love, pain, sorrow, or joy. We ask the world to share in our suffering, though we may not actually be suffering at all. In the case of death, we seek the suffering that those immediately affected by the tragedy are feeling and in turn minimize the pain that they may be feeling. With the use of social media, we have become an entirely self-centered society. We detach ourselves in real life to attach ourselves

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