Is it healthy to talk to dead people on Facebook?

What happens when we leave the digital representation of ourselves behind?

In Rest in Pixels, external, we explore the wealth of data that remains available for people to interact with and how it's possible to manipulate how we're remembered from beyond the grave.

There are now over 30 million dead people on Facebook. Between 2020 and 2060, it's thought that there could be more profiles of dead people on Facebook than living, external, meaning that it's fast becoming a vast digital graveyard. But for those grieving, Dr Elaine Kasket, a psychologist at Regent’s University in London, answers the question: is it healthy to talk to dead people online?

Has the internet changed how we talk to dead people?

In short, yes. Throughout history, people have tried to maintain a connection with their dead loved ones: talking to them out loud or in their head, visiting their grave, writing journal entries addressed to the deceased… Remember when Princess Diana died and thousands of people left her cards, flowers and teddies?

Interacting with dead people online has a different quality and can feel much richer. Firstly, a physical letter won’t go anywhere unless you deliver it somewhere. Talking to someone’s headstone in an empty cemetery doesn’t guarantee they’ll hear you. But if you write something online, who knows where it'll end up? For digital natives (people born in the mid-80s or later), to put something on the internet is to trust it will be received, by someone, somewhere, in the ether.

Secondly, sites like Facebook are a 'place' people connected with their loved one when they were alive - it might even be the last 'place' you 'saw' or communicated before being parted - so it’s natural to reach out for them in the same 'place' that you interacted, talked and joked.

Visiting their grave in a cemetery might feel strange; it may not feel like your friend is there, as you never visited that place before together. On Facebook, you’re hanging out in the same space and returning to the relationship you had when they were alive. There’s also a vivid, visual record of your relationship online that a tombstone can't represent.

But it’s still a one-sided relationship; a dead person can’t message you back…

I don’t think anyone is expecting the dead person to pipe up! But it still helps people to feel connected to their loved one. People have always talked about angels watching over us; often someone’s guardian angel is somebody they’ve loved and lost. People often say things like: “I almost fell asleep at the wheel but I woke up at the last moment because you were watching over me,” or “I was having a bad day, then I saw a rainbow in the sky and knew it was you.” Instead of just thinking it, they might write it on a memorial page.

What I find fascinating is the idea of having profiles of the dead and the living mixed up in the same space. It’s like walking down a street with graves dotted everywhere, instead of in a cemetery. You’re simultaneously connecting with the memory of dead friends and pals who are still alive.

Don't you sometimes think mourning on a Facebook page seems less sincere somehow? Do you think there is 'competitive mourning', for example?

Not really. People have always competed for 'chief mourner status' but now anyone can set up an 'in memorial' page, it throws up all sorts of questions: who’s the best person to represent the deceased? Who owns their online legacy? It happens in analogue life too - who was closest to the deceased? Who should organise how they’re remembered? But it can be more visible online, especially when lots of memorial pages spring up for the same person and mourners end up asking: “Where am I supposed to go to remember my friend?” It’s a bit like fighting over the ashes or deciding who has dibs on writing a celebrity’s authorised biography - anyone can write an unauthorised version, but who is awarded the privilege of writing the authorised one?

You’ve described profile removal as “traumatising”?

These days, everything is online. We record so little physically; we don’t keep shoeboxes of letters, photographs and mementos any more. Lots of our online memories aren’t anywhere else - who actually bothers to back up anything on Facebook?

If a 22-year-old were to die, and their next of kin decided to delete their Facebook profile because they found it distasteful, it would be like barging in to each of the deceased’s friends’ houses, seizing their shoebox of memories without their permission and burning it.

The fact that social media is accessible 24/7 is amazing, but it also means we assume our online relationships and memories - photos, conversations, and in-jokes - will always be there. But they can all vanish in an instant.

If the next of kin aren’t happy to reinstate the profile, there’s nothing you can do. I suppose you could potentially say that a Facebook page isn’t just the work of one person… It’s a collaborative enterprise, so if someone didn’t want the page removed, they could argue they’re a co-creator and therefore retain a percentage of copyright… There are no rules right now as it’s so early in the game. But I believe people should be able to grieve however they choose.

Isn’t keeping someone’s profile up after they die a bit eerie, like keeping their bedroom exactly as it was?

Preserving a bedroom, continuing to lay a place at the dinner table, posting on their Facebook wall… Some people do this to help them remember a loved one whilst getting on with life. It doesn’t necessarily affect someone’s understanding or acceptance of death.

I blame Freud for all the stock phrases you hear about grief - the idea that we need to stop thinking about people who’ve passed, to 'let go' and 'move on'. This notion is a departure from thousands of years of human history. We’ve always internalised relationships with people closest to us, they live on in our minds and the ways we feel connected to them. The relationship has obviously changed, but it doesn’t necessarily end.

People return to memories all the time in their mind; with this, you just see everything on a screen instead. Obviously, Facebook was never intended to become a memorial site for the dead - no-one thought about this angle - but so far, there’s no evidence to suggest any adverse effects.

The technological age is in its infancy; the idea of storing so much data is huge for the human race and evolution. Changes in how people relate to each other and spread information, on a global scale, over the Internet, are the biggest thing since language. We’re still in phase one, so I can’t possibly give definitive answer or predict what might happen in years to come.