Epidemic: What will be the effects of virtual bereavement?

While Quebec was “on hiatus” a little over a year ago, support was not required at the time of mourning. Various social media platforms, as we know, have contributed to changing our social space and our community life in recent years. As various restrictions – necessary and important to limit the spread of the virus – have been put in place, people have faced themselves with the need to navigate their grief in a different way, habits and customs- Out of customs.

Bureaucratic experts agree that social support and funeral rituals are an essential component of mourning.

Since it was not possible to physically meet each other to support each other, we could see different digital tools and platforms everywhere that allowed people to be together, remotely: support groups on Facebook, Maintenance of the deceased person’s page (Memorial account), more or less organized tribute on the social network, planning of online meetings to exchange with relatives on the deceased, to illuminate virtual candles, comfortable photos of the traveling life, Sending photos and videos montages, creating new rituals from afar, and more.

Now, it is necessary to wonder how their mourning lived in this context of the bereaved epidemic and in the digital age.

For example, online funerals offered by many funeral organizations, which are possible to attend live via Instagram, Facebook, or Skype, were zoom-funerals to follow from home, undoubtedly tools to remove the prohibition of physical involvement Were able to

However, we know little about these practices and their impact on the tragic trajectories of those who have lost a loved one during an epidemic, whether at the funeral or after it.

So, digital rituals – developed in the face of health measures to do nothing but effective? Or do they lead to virtual mourning, in the esoteric sense of the word: imitating reality and not the right adaptation to harm?

Facing these questions, a Canadian research team is currently conducting a study to assess the effects of health restrictions on the experience of bereavement. Online study called Covideuil (www.covideuil.ca), Is particularly interested in digital practices mobilized by those who have lost a loved one since the onset of the epidemic and analyzes whether they can be helpful in mourning and how.

The flexibility and creativity mobilized for the implementation of digital practices must be studied, as they potentially experience a way to witness the light that emerges in the world, through all the challenges and difficulties experienced in an epistemic context. Can. Mourned in the digital age.