DEAN POLING: Facebook grief, the world moves on

Published 11:34 am Sunday, January 14, 2024

One moment you’re offering prayers for a friend’s loss, the next moment you’re laughing at a joke, or telling a joke or sharing how something wonderful has happened.

The world has always been this way. We attend a funeral for the relative of a friend then we eat, go back to work, we cheer for our team, go to a movie, go on a date. We laugh, love, live. All in the same day.

Everyone knows it works this way. Everyone has been in this situation. The world does not stop. Even though for the people in deep mourning, the world seems to stop.

In the past, mourners could pretend it stopped. Every person who came to the funeral seemed to be grieving, too. Every phone call was to commiserate on the loss. Every visitor shared words of condolence.

Mourners could believe everything had stopped for their time of loss. At least within their social circle, if not the whole world. Of course, no matter how much we mourn, we know that everything has not stopped.

Because we have also been the people who hate to hear the news of loss and we feel the sting of knowing what a friend is going through. If it’s not someone very close to us, we may feel sad but we are not bereft.

We offer help. We offer comfort. We offer sympathy. We take some time to remember. But we are not the closest ones. Not this time. So, we take a moment then we go about our day, ever ready to switch back into the role of comforter when the need arises.

But otherwise, we go about our regular business.

We all know this because there are levels of grief, depending on how close we are to the person who’s died, or the person closest to the person who died, or how sensitive we are to the feelings of others.

So, when we are the mourners, we know the world moves on but in the past we did not have to witness it. We could accept the sad condolence of a friend while knowing our friend would be having a meal, going back to work, going to a game, even noting a birthday later, but we didn’t have to witness the friend’s responses or experiences.

We could pretend that they did these other things in a saddened state of mind.

Social media has changed all of that.

In some ways, social media has been a blessing to people in mourning. People can immediately share condolences on Facebook. They can share stories and memories about the deceased. They can post photos of the deceased. They can offer the family help. They can offer prayers.

Mourners receive a bounty of good will and good wishes on social media.

The flip side is mourners witness reminders of how quickly people move onto the next thing. The same person who offered prayers one minute is laughing at a meme a few minutes later. The same person who offered remembrances one minute is posting photos from the great time they are having on a trip.

There is nothing new in this. Society has always worked this way. We all know it because we have all done it or will do it. There are times when we are the ones deep in grief and there are times when we are the ones saddened but not as close to the grieving.

There are times when we feel the world should stop and there are times we know we take a moment and the world keeps going and we keep going with it.

The only difference now is mourners who continue checking social media during times of grief cannot fool themselves that the world has stopped … not even for the people they know.

With social media, we finally have proof: The world stands still for no one.

Dean Poling is a former editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and The Tifton Gazette.