When remembrance moves onto social media
For students who have lost someone close, a social media profile can become a place to revisit photographs, share memories or write messages to a person who has died. A new Belgian study suggests these digital practices are linked to the grieving process, but not always in straightforward ways.
Researchers surveyed 270 bereaved students aged 18 to 28 and found that more grief-related social media use was associated with stronger grief reactions and a stronger sense of ongoing connection with the deceased. Perceived support through social media showed a different pattern.
The study was observational and cannot determine whether online activity intensifies grief or whether students with more intense grief turn to social media more frequently.
What the researchers wanted to understand
Social platforms have become informal spaces for memorials, anniversaries and shared remembrance. They can offer comfort by making memories available and allowing friends to acknowledge a loss.
They can also expose people to unexpected reminders, repeated photographs and emotionally difficult interactions. The researchers distinguished between two related but different experiences: using social media to maintain a continuing bond with someone who has died, and feeling supported by other people through social media.
They asked how these experiences related to grief intensity, symptoms of mental distress and the sense that the relationship with the deceased continued in some form.
Who participated in the study
The participants were 270 students attending universities and other higher education institutions in Flanders, Belgium. Eligibility required being aged 18 to 28, having lost someone close after the age of 12, and having experienced that death at least six months before the survey.
The last criterion was intended to avoid approaching people in the earliest period of acute bereavement. Participants completed an online questionnaire and could withdraw at any point.
The study was approved by KU Leuven’s Social and Societal Ethics Committee. Because the sample was recruited from higher education in one region, the findings should not be treated as representative of all bereaved young adults.
How grief and digital activity were measured
The survey used established questionnaires to assess grief reactions, mental distress and continuing bonds with the deceased. Grief-related social media activity was measured with a continuing-bonds-on-social-media scale, while perceived online support was assessed using a Facebook-related social support measure.
The mental distress outcome used the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, commonly called DASS-21. The researchers also collected information about the death and relationship, including emotional closeness, time since death and whether the death had been expected.
All the measures were self-reported at the same time. No platform activity logs, clinical diagnoses or prospective follow-up were used to verify changes over time.
A continuing bond is not necessarily unhealthy
The idea of a continuing bond refers to maintaining an inner relationship with a deceased person. Someone might preserve an object, revisit memories or speak to the person in their thoughts.
Digital tools offer additional forms, such as viewing old messages or posting on a memorialised profile. These experiences are not inherently harmful.
The meaning depends on whether they provide comfort, trigger unwanted reminders or become associated with persistent distress. The study measured the strength of continuing bonds but could not determine whether any individual’s bond was helpful, burdensome or both.
The first correlation findings
01. 01.
Both are positive, moderate associations: participants who reported more remembrance-related social media activity tended also to report stronger grief and stronger continuing bonds. These are correlations, not estimates of how much grief a given post causes.
More frequent use could reflect a desire for closeness among students already experiencing stronger grief.
Grief and mental distress overlapped
01, a stronger relationship than the link between grief-related social media use and grief. 151.
These simple correlations capture pairwise relationships before controlling for other factors. They should not be read as proof that social media causes depression, anxiety or stress.
The researchers therefore also used regression models to examine how associations changed after accounting for relevant characteristics.
What the adjusted grief model showed
In a hierarchical regression, the authors first entered age, sex, emotional closeness, time since death, cause and expectedness of death, continuing bonds and mental distress. 3% of variation in the grief score.
7 percentage points. 001.
007. The two digital measures thus pointed in opposite directions for the grief outcome after adjustment.
Support and distress produced a more complicated result
0% in the initial model. 526.
006. That is notable because the paper’s prose describes higher support as linked to lower distress, while its numerical regression table displays a positive coefficient.
Without clarification of the scale coding or this apparent reporting inconsistency, the direction of that adjusted relationship should not be asserted confidently. The safest conclusion is that the relationship between online support and distress is not simple.
Why stronger online activity may accompany stronger grief
There are several plausible explanations for the observed association. Students experiencing intense grief may revisit profiles, photographs and old conversations more often.
Alternatively, repeated exposure to emotionally charged content may sometimes sustain rumination. Both processes could operate together, and the survey cannot distinguish them.
A third factor, such as the closeness of the relationship or circumstances of the death, may influence both online behaviour and grief. Although the regression models included several covariates, they could not eliminate every possible source of confounding.
What support can and cannot provide
An online condolence, message or memory shared by a friend can make a bereaved student feel less alone. But the amount of perceived support does not necessarily reveal its quality, timing or fit with a person’s needs.
Public posts may bring reassurance for some and unwanted attention for others. Students can also encounter conflicting expectations about whether they should continue posting about the person they lost.
The study did not randomly assign supportive messages, compare specific platform designs or evaluate professional counselling. It therefore cannot tell universities which online intervention would reduce grief symptoms.
Why universities should pay attention
Bereavement can disrupt attendance, concentration, social relationships and academic progress. Students may not seek formal assistance immediately, and some use digital spaces because friends and memories are already there.
University support services could ask open-ended questions about whether online remembrance feels comforting, overwhelming or mixed. Such conversations may help staff understand how a student is coping without assuming that all social media use is harmful.
Peer-support programmes and counselling services should offer choice rather than prescribing that bereaved students either disconnect or post more frequently.
The limitations behind the headline
The cross-sectional design is the most important limitation: online behaviour and grief were assessed at one time point, so cause and effect cannot be established. Participants were students aged 18 to 28 in Flanders, limiting generalisation to older adults, younger adolescents and other cultural settings.
Recruitment through an online questionnaire may favour people comfortable using digital services. The study relied on self-report, and the scales may not capture newer platform features or the emotional context of each interaction.
Several variables were related to one another, making the adjusted coefficients dependent on model choices. The inconsistency between prose and numerical results for perceived support and mental distress also warrants caution.
What future research could clarify
Longitudinal studies could follow students from different points after bereavement and measure whether changes in social media behaviour precede changes in grief or vice versa. Diary methods could distinguish deliberate remembrance from unexpected algorithmic reminders.
Interviews might reveal why some posts feel supportive while others feel intrusive. Larger, culturally diverse samples could examine whether relationship to the deceased, privacy settings and type of platform alter the experience.
Intervention trials could test whether offering digital-literacy guidance or tailored peer support improves well-being, rather than assuming an association is a treatment effect.
The central finding
Among 270 bereaved students in Belgium, greater grief-related social media use was associated with stronger grief reactions and stronger continuing bonds with the deceased. Perceived online support was associated with lower grief in the adjusted grief model, while its relationship with broader mental distress was less clear.
The study highlights that digital remembrance and digital support are distinct experiences. Neither should be treated as automatically harmful or beneficial, and neither association establishes causality.
Source Information
Study Title: Grief-related social media use and perceived social media support among bereaved students: associations with grief, mental health, and continuing bonds
Authors: C. Gerrits, L. Claes and K. Andriessen
Journal: Frontiers in Public Health
Published: 9 October 2026
Study design: Cross-sectional online questionnaire survey
Sample: 270 bereaved students aged 18–28 in Flanders, Belgium
Methods: Self-report measures, correlations and hierarchical regression analyses
Main finding: Grief-related social media use was associated with stronger grief and continuing bonds; the association of perceived online support with mental distress was less clear.
