This article is part of "Fresh Minds, New Times," a teen supplement produced by the Young Jewish Journalists’ Project of the Coalition for Jewish Learning in collaboration with The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
As Laura Miller’s family faced her illness and death, hundreds of Facebook users followed the news.
Statuses of Facebook users were changed to remember Laura. Several Nicolet High School students formed Facebook groups that attracted hundreds of people.
Emily Feldmesser, a freshman at Nicolet and close friend of Laura, created “The Laura Miller Support Group,” just days after Laura became ill with a brain tumor in February. The group quickly grew to include more than 500 members.
“She was one of my best friends and I just felt like it needed to be done,” said Feldmesser.
“Instead of people whispering, there’s one place that’s a reliable resource for information. I shared two classes with Laura, and the kids in those classes elected me to make the group.”
“It made me happy to see that people cared about her well-being at the time,” she remembers.
“Everybody banded together and cared. Even people who didn’t know her joined [the group] and cared and wrote notes about her. There was an outpouring of support … from kids our age.”
As Laura’s family dealt with her illness, they created a Web site on CaringBridge, a nonprofit Web service that connects family and friends during a critical illness, treatment or recovery.
Through it, the Millers kept friends informed about Laura’s illness and subsequent death. But the site also created an avenue for community members to reach out and comfort the family. The site drew more than 5,000 visits and more than 700 comments from friends and family.
To Laura’s mother, Susan Angel Miller, the messages were a source of peace and strength.
“It made us feel like there was a community behind us, that they cared and we weren’t alone,” she said.
“We printed all the comments from CaringBridge and Facebook, and even today we go back [and read them]. It was incredibly valuable. There isn’t much more that can comfort you than having others tell you things about the person that died.”
With the creation of social networking sites, comforting those in mourning only takes a few well-placed clicks. Web sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter allow users to create profiles of themselves with pictures and videos, as well as join groups, plan or RSVP to events, and chat using instant messaging.
By way of these technological advances, news tends to spread quickly. And once the news is spread, users can react just as swiftly. Whether an event is joyous or painful, involving a handful or a stadium full of people, chances are that it’s somewhere in cyberspace.
Today, more than 60 percent of teenagers have a profile on a social networking site. According to Melanie Wasserman, a psychotherapist at Jewish Family Services, a need to express grief is a large part of why teens turn to these Web pages in times of grief and loss.
“It definitely does provide … a forum for many, many people to express their loss or express their sympathy for someone they care about who has passed,” she said.
“It creates, in some ways, a memorial or a way of formalizing how one feels in a more public arena.”
Though social networking sites can bring solace to those in anguish, the Web sites can also be used to post pictures from a rowdy party, form groups celebrating mundane objects such as pickles, or ridicule others.
Posting news of someone’s passing beside humorous or random thoughts could be considered demeaning to the person who died or maybe too revealing for relatives.
“I think how it can be harmful is that grief is a very personal experience,” Wasserman says, “And maybe the family or those who are particularly close to that loved one may not appreciate things that might be expressed. There is no filtering of the information. Those sites allow both negative and positive information to reach people very quickly.”
When asked about this issue, teenage Facebook users spoke up.
“Making a Facebook group or changing one’s status is just a way to express grief,” said one user. “Whatever way people express their grief should be accepted as long as it does not harm others.”
Another user wrote, “I believe that starting groups, or writing on one’s status about remembering a person is absolutely positive. Sure, it may seem a bit weird … but with today’s technology, less people would use the phone or write a letter. They’d simply send an e-mail.”
Though she embraces new technology, Angel Miller acknowledged the special value of hand-written messages.
“All the technology, CaringBridge and Facebook, were amazing, but the old fashioned letters that kids wrote on that Friday and Monday, and also all of the condolence cards that we received, have been very helpful.”
Talia Lakritz is a sophomore at Torah Academy of Milwaukee. She is a former Chronicle intern.
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