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Source URL: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250123-the-apps-turning-grief-into-data-points

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'This app became my best friend': Mourning is human. New grief apps want to 'optimise' it for you

'This app became my best friend': Mourning is human. New grief apps want to 'optimise' it for you

People are turning tozwracają się do 'grief appsaplikacje żałobne' to coperadzić sobie with the loss of family and friends. But the new world of death datadane dotyczące śmierci raises troublingniepokojący questions.

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When Nitika's father passed awayzmarł unexpectedlyniespodziewanie in 2023, she was a continent awayna innym kontynencie from her support systemsystem wsparcia. She had moved from India to Canada only a year prior, and was the first in her friend group to grapplezmagać się with the death of a parent. "Living far away from my family and dealing with this massive loss was unbearable. I often felt lost and lonely," says Nitika, who asked to withhold her full name to protect her privacy.

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Then she came acrossnatknęła się na an Instagram post from the grief app Untangle, which offers "personalised bereavementżałoba support" through virtual support groups and moderated forums, boosted with built-in AI features. Nitika downloaded the app. At first, she just read other people's posts, drawing strengthczerpać siłę from how others' experiences mirrored her own. The similarities made her feel less alone, and she started posting. "I mustered the couragezebrała odwagę to write about my story, and since then this app became my best friend," Nitika says.

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In soothingly serifedz szeryfami fonts and tasteful colour palettesgustowne palety kolorów that are muted but never sombre, Untangle and a number of other new "grief apps", including DayNew and Empathy, seek to remake mourning for the modern era. They have the potential to democratisedemokratyzować access to support that can otherwise be hard to find. But in doing so, privacy experts say these apps are introducing corporate technologytechnologia korporacyjna – and all the problems of the digital age – into the vulnerabilitywrażliwość of grief.

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The apps come withzawierać libraries of contentbiblioteki treści dedicated to grief and mental health. Users can connect with other mournersżałobnicy and share photos and stories of their loved ones. Some apps offer AI features such as journaling prompts, personalised to-do listsspersonalizowane listy zadań, and advice from chatbot A few include administrative checklists and expert consultationskonsultacje to manage the mountain of legal and financial paperwork that comes with death.

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"It's optimisedoptymalizowane healing," says Karine Nissim, co-founder of DayNew, an app that provides support for loss and other traumatictraumatyczne life changes. "It's essentially your therapist, your best friend and your personal assistant in your pocketpod ręką, helping you see the whole journey and create one workflow for it."

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But mourning is messyżałoba jest chaotyczna. It doesn't typically hewtrzymać się to a workflow, and some argue it shouldn't.

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Grief apps introduce a new wrinklenowy aspekt to the ongoing conversationtrwająca rozmowa about which experiences can and should be mediatedpośredniczony by apps and the companies behind them. Like almost all other apps, grief apps collect personal datadane osobowe. In the past, you might lose a loved one and decide to speak with a therapist or join an online or in-person support group. You wouldn't have to worry how information you shared was being stored, or whether details about you were being tracked and sold by your psychologist or the group facilitatorfacylitator. Of course, if you couldn’t pay for therapy or find a group, you might also find yourselfznaleźć się without support of any kind.

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"I think the biggest drawnajwiększa atrakcja is that we could potentially increase access to resources that people might not otherwise have," says Adrian Aguilera, a psychologist and professor at UC Berkeley who studies digital mental health interventionscyfrowe interwencje w zakresie zdrowia psychicznego. The most important thing grief apps can provide is consistency and accessibilitydostępność, he says, and our pre-existing comfort with virtual interfaces can make themuczynić je a natural-feeling extension of real life. "Social connection is one of the best aspects of digital technologies", especially if you don't have access to a peer or care provider.

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But how much of your privacy would you trade to technology companieswymienić na firmy technologiczne for accessibilitydostępność, support and connection? And if griefżal apps replace support systemszastąpić systemy wsparcia that have historically been made up of humans, does the comfort still feel the same?

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In the months after her mum died, Sofia Root, from Pennsylvania, US, felt a swirl of emotionswir emocji: isolationizolacja, desperation, sorrow, anger, boredom. She was "not an online person, for the most part", Root says, but she joined a few Reddit communities based aroundoparte na loss. It helped a bit. "Every now and then you get that little dopamine rushprzypływ dopaminy when you read something you can relate to, and it just distracts you from your own issues for a minute."

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Then, like Nitika, she was served an Instagram adotrzymała reklamę na Instagramie for Untangle. She gave the app a try, and soon noticed a comment from one of the community managers on another user's post. To Root, the comment sounded like it was written by artificial intelligence. "The idea that they might be using AI to produce something that's supposed to be about connecting with real people, it seemed a little fraudulentoszukańczy to me," Root says. "It goes back towraca do that isolation."

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Emily Cummin, chief executivedyrektor generalny of Untangle, recallswspomina the incident. "I spoke about it with that community manager, because she was actually horrifiedprzerażona that someone thought that she was an AI," Cummin says. "My belief is probably that people feel a bit uncomfortable that they'd be talking to an automated systemzautomatyzowany system when they're at a really vulnerablewrażliwy time."

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But the liberal sprinklingrozsypywanie of artificial intelligence throughout grief apps can introduce doubt. When amplifiedwzmocniony by the overwhelming cycle of griefprzytłaczający cykl żalu, that doubt can be enough to do damage. Root reached outskontaktować się to the community manager, who assured her she hadn't used AI to draft the comment, but it was all too much. Feeling betrayed, Root deleted the app. "Interacting on this stupid little smartphone, with just your thumbs? It's not gonna replace what you lost, and it's only gonna take you so farzabrać cię tak daleko (w sensie ograniczonego wsparcia)," Root says.

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