Suicide and Social Media Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, while being the third among adolescents aged 15-24 (AFSP, n.d.). Along with the increase of social media usage, prevalence rates of suicide among teens continue to rise as well (Luxton, 2014). With the increase in both suicide and social media usage, millions of people are beginning to use sites such as Facebook to further enhance their grieving process. This increase allows people to provide their condolences via social media without impeding on the immediate family providing them additional support during the grieving process. To further address the above statistics, we must explore the positive and negative effects social media has on the grieving
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Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model shows the interaction of biological, cognitive and psychological changes in an environment (Kuther, 2017). When suicide grief occurs during adolescents, their microsystem is affected; this includes one’s direct environment i.e one’s immediate family members. Secondly, when your microsystems interact, a mesosystem is created. For example, when your family life is affected by suicide and people are constantly bringing up the death via social media, it can affect other aspects of life including school work. When one’s school work is affected negatively, it may harm an adolescences ability to further their cognitive development. In the school setting, there may be counselors that allow children to speak and grieve with. On the other hand, one’s mesosystem can provide a net of grieving support via social media to shorten the grieving process because there is a network of people available for support. Additionally, Erikson’s third psychosocial stage is identity vs role confusion. During this stage, children develop a sense of self which is when an individual understands who they are (Kuther, 2017). A person who is grieving must come to terms with the loss and begin to live life without the deceased individual. During the suicide grieving process, an individual must create a new sense of self without the person which can be a very difficult process. When adolescents grieve, they may become more isolated and less likely to interact with peers affecting their social development. After a death, this may alter aspects of their psychosocial development. When one’s psychosocial development is altered, it may lead an individual to problems with emotional regulation throughout the entirety of development. To help regulate these emotions positively, an individual must talk about their emotions by talking to a
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model shows the interaction of biological, cognitive and psychological changes in an environment (Kuther, 2017). When suicide grief occurs during adolescents, their microsystem is affected; this includes one’s direct environment i.e one’s immediate family members. Secondly, when your microsystems interact, a mesosystem is created. For example, when your family life is affected by suicide and people are constantly bringing up the death via social media, it can affect other aspects of life including school work. When one’s school work is affected negatively, it may harm an adolescences ability to further their cognitive development. In the school setting, there may be counselors that allow children to speak and grieve with. On the other hand, one’s mesosystem can provide a net of grieving support via social media to shorten the grieving process because there is a network of people available for support. Additionally, Erikson’s third psychosocial stage is identity vs role confusion. During this stage, children develop a sense of self which is when an individual understands who they are (Kuther, 2017). A person who is grieving must come to terms with the loss and begin to live life without the deceased individual. During the suicide grieving process, an individual must create a new sense of self without the person which can be a very difficult process. When adolescents grieve, they may become more isolated and less likely to interact with peers affecting their social development. After a death, this may alter aspects of their psychosocial development. When one’s psychosocial development is altered, it may lead an individual to problems with emotional regulation throughout the entirety of development. To help regulate these emotions positively, an individual must talk about their emotions by talking to a