Are one-click condolences and sympathies helpful?

NAIROBI: When television host Janet Kanini Ikua took to Facebook two weeks ago to announce that she had been diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer, Kenyans reacted overwhelmingly, expressing best wishes and offering to contribute towards settling her medical bill.

Janet’s case illustrates the instant support system that users of Facebook and other social media outlets offer to people in distress.

From sickness to death, social media has changed the way people react to life-changing events.

A single post about one’s ailment opens floodgates of reactions that take on a life of their own. But is this a good or bad thing?

First, it is cheaper, fast and convenient, but it has its downside too.

Alexis Ndinda, a psychology student at Daystar University, thinks it is a good thing because with a single post, Janet managed to reach thousands of people.

As the message went viral after being shared by her friends and followers, people responded with an outpouring of support, sympathies and prayers.

“It is cheaper and convenient to make such announcements on social media and receive instantaneous responses,” Alexis says. “And even people who may be miles away from the affected person are able to express their sympathies and solidarity quickly.”

Alexis notes that it takes a lot of courage for people in distress to open up and share their raw feelings and private information on social media, as such, they deserve all the support they can get.

She adds that this is especially important when someone passes away, as relatives who cannot attend a funeral or a memorial service to pay their last respects can still honour the departed via social media.

“It allows us to express our feelings and soften the blow of a tragedy,” she says, and adds that she can “visit a deceased friend’s profile on Facebook and post a comment or photo that would make me feel better.”

Also, she says, when relatives grieve on Facebook they seek solace because the positive comments are comforting.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at the University of London, has the same view.

“Social media can act as a social buffer or catalyst for people’s pain and loneliness. It is a cry for warmth and sympathy in an otherwise superficial and narcissistic environment,” he is quoted as saying in an article published in The Atlantic in April 2014.

“People’s sympathy and “Likes” are genuine, not least because they recognise that the person is genuinely looking for support and help rather than the usual admiration or status approval.”

But Vanessa Wanjiru, a second year communications student feels this is just intrusiveness in times of crisis.

She says the liberal use of social media in times of sickness and death can be intrusive as “people let others see their pain and when every Tom, Dick and Harry on social media knows about your painful experience, mourning begins to lose its value.”

To Vanessa, even in this digital age, a degree of privacy needs to be maintained during such tragic or life-changing events.

She says although people are so obsessed with documenting every aspect of their lives — from their latest dress to a meal they have just prepared or had — and sharing it on new media platforms, a line should be drawn at things such as death, given the personal nature of the grief associated with it.

Vanessa avers that social media’s allure of instant gratification in the form of “Likes” and “Comments” has allowed strangers to ride roughshod over privacy of people in distress by carelessly over-sharing and over-commenting on personal thoughts or events so they can be seen as knowledgeable and interesting.

Sarah Cheptepkeny, an associate counselor and project manager at Hopeful Africa says that mourning is universal and at some point of everybody’s life one will experience loss.

“Nowadays, more people are sensitive about this and people are being more empathetic to people going through loss and the social media has created an environment for people to express themselves and the loss they are experiencing,” Sarah says.

However, Sarah, who is accredited by Kenya Counselor and Psychology Association thinks “that is where the role of the social media should end. Let the bereaved express themselves and the people on the other side of the screen should contact the bereaved through a phone call and meet them” because “a post on social media is so emotionless.”

She feels that a phone call or a meeting will give you a feel of how the person is feeling and enable you to know how to help.

“The most important thing one can do for someone who is mourning is to help him/ her go through grief in a healthy way, and this cannot be achieved via social media,” Sarah says, and adds that if you are far away from people who are grieving, sending them private messages to let them know you are there for them, and actually mean it, can help them cope with their loss.

“The key is that in critical moments people switch from “acting good” (portraying an unrealistically successful digital persona) and seeking status to “being down” and seeking warmth and affiliation,” Chamorro-Premuzic says in the article How We Grieve on Social Media, in The Atlantic.

“Users begin to acknowledge the greater community as something more than an affirmation indicated by a digital thumb. Focus shifts from a desire for an endorsement to a desire for support. Tragedy invites us to lay aside the ‘I’ of social media and embrace the ‘we.’”

Even then, Vanessa still sees it differently.

She says that in some cases, individuals or firms hijack high-traffic posts, especially those by public figures and celebrities, to market their wares. “How does that do justice to the feelings of the affected people?” she poses.

Dr David Giles, an expert in media influence on human behaviour at Winchester University in United Kingdom, is quoted in an article published in The Independent as saying that condolences via social media can, sometimes, be more significant.

According to the article, he differentiated between two mourners: mourner A, ‘who turns up to a funeral, lurks at the back and fails to utter a word’ and mourner B who posts a tweet.

He said, ‘mourner A has been a physical presence, but it’s possible they have gone unnoticed, while everyone will have read mourner B’s tweet.’

Dr Pamela Rutledge, a Director of the California, United States-based Media Psychology Research Centre, says “social media has allowed a different expression of grief.”

In an article titled Has social media changed the way we grieve? in The Independent, she argues that social media enables “more people to be involved in the grieving process without imposing on immediate family and friends,” while still making them aware of “the larger community of support.”

Though social norms for mourning in the digital age are still evolving, Vanessa is worried that morbid selfies from cemeteries may soon be considered normal.

“Offline or on Facebook, crass is crass when it comes to funerals and memorial services,” says David Ryan Polgar, a Connecticut, US-based lawyer and former professor who blogs about technology and ethics.

“Would you want to see Google Glass at a funeral? Nothing can replace that human connection,” he says in Social media and mourning: Funerals may be the last frontier, an article published in The Seattle Times.

“There are certain times for a heightened awareness, a need to stay in the moment, and a funeral is one of them.”

The same article quotes Walker Posey, a funeral director in South Carolina and a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association, as saying that technology definitely has its place in the mourning process, but selfies from cemeteries are not among them. Walker’s funeral home includes this etiquette suggestion on its website: “Don’t infringe on the family’s right to privacy. In today’s world of social media and technology, it is essential to remember that these tools are a way of showing support and care for the family who is experiencing grief.

“The use of technology and social media to post anything which may violate the family’s right to privacy or ability to properly grieve must be avoided.”

But should the profiles of those who have died remain on social media platforms such as Facebook?

“No, they should be taken down so that the bereaved can have an easy time moving on and avoid living in their tragic past,” Vanessa says.

However, Dominic Mutai, a public relations consultant says the profiles of the dead should remain because they not only help to preserve their memory online and serve as a tribute, but they also unite mourners and make them feel connected to the person they lost.

Mutai however says affected people ought to carefully weigh their options before releasing private information about sickness in the free-for-all environment of social media.

“Sometimes it is better to release such intimate information to selected people, and privately to prevent others who do not even know you from encroaching on your personal space as you deal with the unfortunate situation,” he says.

Mutai argues that social media has created an exhibitionist culture and a constant game of one-upmanship in which everyone wants to be the first to post or share the latest information without thinking about the consequences of their actions.

But Brian Aseli, a host on Shine FM radio station says the upsides of social media far outweigh the downsides. When his friend, who was a presenter at a local radio station passed on recently, Aseli and friends created a WhatsApp group through which they managed to raise Ksh120,000 to support the family.

In a society as fragmented along ethnic and socio-economic lines as Kenya, he contends that social media provides a rare unifying platform in times of crisis.

“Thanks to social media, you do not only share your pain with the rest of the world, but also share the burden the loss brings,” says Aseli.

He adds that although no post on Facebook or Twitter can adequately do justice to the loss caused by death and no Instagram filter can soften the grief that the Grim Reaper brings, the effectiveness of time-honoured activities such as fundraisers to support bereaved families has been enhanced in the social media age.