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‘You were going online for that person’: How digital tools shaped Irish mourning experiences amidst COVID-19
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Date
2024-11-30
Authors
McCoy, Ava
Ciolfi, Luigina
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Publisher
Springer Nature
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Abstract
Physical restrictions in many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic affected almost all aspects of social life, including end-of-life rituals such as funerals. In Ireland, public health restrictions required mourners to adapt to alternative rituals to customary Irish mourning practices, which are traditionally community-focused and highly social. This period brought significant changes and challenges in the way Irish people and communities mourn, and in how events such as funerals were experienced through digital and online technologies. This paper reports on a qualitative study that contributes a better understanding of the experiences of mourners in Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly regarding the use and role of digital tools during this period, and their continued use following the lifting of pandemic restrictions. Overall, the findings indicate that participants felt a sense of unfulfillment and faced a series of challenges in managing altered support mechanisms, while acknowledging the importance and utility of digitally-mediated experiences, such as participation in live-streamed funerals and in online books of condolences. The paper sheds further light in the experiences of use of technology during the pandemic and provides insights to inform the future design and use of end-of-life digital tools and services, as they remain widely used also after the end of the pandemic.
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Keywords
COVID-19 , Digital mourning , End-of-life , Online funerals
Citation
McCoy, A. and Ciolfi, L. ‘You were going online for that person’: How digital tools shaped Irish mourning experiences amidst COVID-19', Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-024-09505-x
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© 2024, the Authors, under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. This version of the paper has been accepted for publication, after peer review (when applicable) and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-024-09505-x