A 20-some-year-old boy from Dehradun, my city, died in a road accident recently. I didn't know the person until I saw a reel posted by his sister (of course, it was public), a montage of their cherished moments. I was appalled. Not at the tragedy. You'd think so, but no. That didn't move me at all. I couldn't care less. That's social media for you. For me, the hashtags on the reel and the idea that you should go on Instagram two days after the tragedy and tell your "followers" how much you loved your now-very-dead brother—that was tragic. That moved me. To write this. What you're going to read next is not an attack on any individual or their way of grieving but on how people might use social media for grieving, coping, and seeking comfort following an event as tragic as the death of a family member. Or any personal or shared tragedy or trauma, for that matter.
I do not even feel comfortable stating the obvious, but social media is not your family. It is not your friend. It is definitely not your "safe space". On the contrary, it is ironic to call your virtual refuge a "safe space". As much as you've been conditioned to believe so. You've been sold the idea that you can celebrate every little thing on social media for and with your "followers", but when it comes to grieving and coping, I hope you can see social media for what it is: a curated portion of people's lives, designed to elicit reactions or validation. Beyond that, you think Instagram has more to it, but sadly, it does not. Social media has fundamentally changed how we process achievements, tragedies, and activism. We'll stick to tragedies for this opinion piece.
Social media is turning us into "validation junkies". We just can't resist the urge to share every single detail of our emotional rollercoaster ride with the world. You want to share your feelings and connect with others who are going through the same thing. It's not doing us any favours, though. It's a temporary high, a virtual consolation, or recognition. It doesn't actually help you move on from the tragedy.
The Illusion of Comfort in Seeking Pity and Validation on Social Media
Whether it's mass shootings in the USA, terrorist attacks in Lahore, bombings in Palestine, floods in Assam, gang rapes in Uttar Pradesh, riots in Madhya Pradesh, or a death in one's family, we have long relied on our ability to process these events and come to terms with them. But social media is changing it all. Instead of taking the time to process these tragedies, a person turns to social media to express their grief and discuss their trauma. Others offer their condolences. While this may seem like a natural response (it isn't), it can (definitely) often (all the time) lead to emotional numbness, where we become desensitised to the pain of others and fail to feel any real emotion or take any real action. We indulge in empty gestures that serve only to provide temporary relief (if at all).
When we lose someone and immediately seek refuge in social media—and there's no way to sugarcoat this—we are only looking for pity, validation, and recognition. Consciously or not. Perhaps it helps us. Perhaps some form of "online reaction" to our personal tragedy helps with mourning and processing the trauma. Maybe your "followers" offer you a sense of connection and community.
"In times of crisis, people crave social support and validation, and social media can provide that," says Dr Pamela Rutledge, a media psychologist and director of the Media Psychology Research Centre.
However, research suggests that repeatedly discussing traumatic events can actually prolong the healing process.
"The more people talk about their traumatic experiences, the more they tend to ruminate on them, which can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,"
says Dr Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychology and social behaviour at the University of California, Irvine. In other words, constantly reliving a tragedy through social media posts can make it harder to move on and heal.
Social Media is Transforming Our Response to Tragedy and Trauma for the Worse
Maybe, just maybe, it somehow helps the individual. But it is an alarming realisation that people are turning to social media to cope. This means that to process grief, in some sense, perhaps subconsciously, we now need a form of "response", "reaction", "validation", or "recognition" from the virtual world. This is how social media has slowly started to redefine our response to tragedy and trauma, and it's terrifying. Slowly, coping will take a backseat. And we would just be looking for reactions to our personal tragedy. I mean, we already do that when we see the news of some tragedy in a different neighbourhood, city, or country. We do not actually care, but we feel obligated to display how we are affected by the news. We talk, write, and post about it via different mediums. We no longer engage with the tragedy. We engage with the responses we receive to our commentary about the tragedy. By relying on likes and comments as a means of support, we may be neglecting the importance of real-world relationships and emotional support. According to Dr. Shannon M. Rauch, of Benedictine University in Mesa, AZ, one of the main reasons we use social media is for self-distraction and boredom relief.
"Therefore, social media is delivering a reinforcement every time a person logs on," she says.
"For those who post status updates, the reinforcements keep coming in the form of supportive comments and 'likes'. And of course we know that behaviors that are consistently reinforced will be repeated, so it becomes hard for a person who has developed this habit to simply stop."
That's the entire point. We will eventually kill any natural capacity to feel empathy, pain, remorse, or grief. We will only engage with the commentary "around" the tragedy, which will make us think we can feel empathy or compassion. In actuality, we felt nothing, did nothing, and changed nothing.
The Tragic Olympics
Then there's a weird phenomenon where people try to outdo each other with their stories of tragedy and trauma. Suddenly, it's not enough to just be sad about what happened. No, you have to prove that you're the one who's suffering the most.
"Social media can amplify feelings of victimisation and create a sense of competition around who has suffered more,"
says Dr Jolanda Jetten, a professor of social psychology at the University of Queensland.
"This can actually be harmful and prevent people from finding ways to move beyond their trauma."
When one person's suffering is pitted against another's, it not only trivializes the misery and trauma of those affected by different tragedies but also creates a culture of victimization, where people seek validation and attention for their personal struggles rather than focusing on the larger issue at hand. It leads to a lack of empathy and awareness towards those who have experienced different tragedies, and it can even lead to a lack of action or solutions towards the issues.
In Conclusion
As we continue to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of social media, we must prioritise our mental health and well-being above all else. And that means we no longer resort to superficial, surface-level actions that do little to effect real change. We may do in the virtual world whatever we think might help us somehow, but in the end, virtual is not real, and everyone has to realise (sooner or later) that coping can only take place in a living world because the trauma is real. The emotions are real. The loss is real. The consequences are real. And therefore, they will have to be processed, dealt with, talked about, faced, and braved in the real world.
The support has to be real, and it can only come from friends, family members and professionals, and from activities that promote healing and resilience. To each their own, I know, but I do not wish upon my worst enemy to be left alone to deal with a tragedy in a room full of screens and notification panels bombarded with "sorry for your loss" comments.