How blogging is revolutionizing dying

Professor Tony Walter, director of the Centre for Death & Society at the University, has been looking at how the internet has changed the way we die and mourn.

It’s just one of the issues being discussed at the centre’s ‘Dying in the Digital Age’ conference being held at the Bath Royal Literary Society in Queen’s Square tomorrow (9 June).

Professor Walter said: “The internet has changed the way we die in a lot of ways. It can remove the isolation for people as they come to the end of their lives.

“There is a growing trend of terminally ill people writing blogs and biographies. When writing a blog they find people with the same condition and immediately they acquire an informal support group.

“People find themselves connecting with others in the most remarkable ways.”

He added: “There have also been instances of doctors reading their patients’ blogs and beginning to understand better than ever before what it is like to be the patient.”

Professor Walter examines this phenomena in his recently published paper "Does the Internet Change How We Die and Mourn?"

Provided by University of Bath