I did my first research interview. Here are some things I noticed.
I recently completed my first interview for my research project on digital grief and disappearing online spaces. I want to share a few early reflections—not as findings or conclusions, but as notes from the field. This is me working in public, carefully.
At this stage, my role is to listen. To notice. To resist the urge to rush meaning into place.
One of the first things that stood out to me is how quietly digital spaces become woven into people’s emotional lives. These spaces rarely announce their importance. Instead, they build meaning through repetition: a comment left often, a message sent daily, a routine that forms without much thought. What I noticed is that people don’t always recognize the depth of that meaning until something changes—or disappears.
Another thing that stayed with me was how digital interactions often shift after a loss. Things that once felt ordinary, neutral, or even mildly irritating can take on a completely different weight when the person behind them is gone. The content itself doesn’t change, but the relationship around it does. People return to these digital traces deliberately—not to scroll mindlessly, but to feel close, grounded, or momentarily steadied.
I also found myself paying attention to the difference between losses we can anticipate and losses that happen suddenly. Physical loss, even when devastating, often comes with some amount of preparation: conversations, expectations, rituals, time. Digital loss doesn’t usually offer that. Access can vanish overnight. There’s no ceremony, no transition, no socially recognized moment to mark what’s gone. That contrast feels important, and I’m holding it gently rather than naming it too quickly.
Throughout the conversation, it became clear that digital spaces are not just places where memories live. They’re places people return to. They function as anchors—something familiar to reach for during moments of grief, loneliness, or emotional overwhelm. Losing access to those spaces doesn’t just remove content; it interrupts a coping practice people may not have realized they were relying on.
I was also struck by how fragile these digital environments actually are. Many of us move through them assuming a kind of permanence that doesn’t exist. Platforms change rules. Accounts are removed. Apps disappear. And yet, we continue to store deeply meaningful parts of our lives in these spaces, often without backups and often without fully realizing the risk involved.
A reflection on my role in this work
As a listener, my responsibility in this interview was to hold space without steering the story. To let pauses happen. To follow what felt emotionally significant rather than what felt tidy. That meant resisting the urge to “clarify” or “summarize” in the moment, and instead allowing complexity to remain unresolved.
As a researcher, I’m aware that it’s tempting to start naming patterns immediately—to rush toward language, frameworks, or arguments. I’m intentionally slowing that impulse down. Right now, my focus is on careful attention: noticing repetition, tension, and absence without forcing interpretation too early.
And as someone who has experienced this kind of grief myself, I felt the quiet resonance of recognition—not in a way that blurred boundaries, but in a way that sharpened my care. I know what it means to return to a digital space looking for someone who isn’t there anymore. I know how sudden digital disappearance can compound loss rather than simply accompany it. That lived knowledge doesn’t replace analysis, but it does inform how gently and seriously I approach this work.
I’m holding all three roles at once: listener, researcher, and witness. That balance feels essential to this project.
I’m not drawing conclusions yet. I’m treating this phase as one of listening, noticing, and honoring the trust people place in me when they share their experiences. What this first interview made clear is that these moments—these quiet, often invisible forms of loss—deserve more care, more language, and more thoughtful attention than they usually receive.
This is only the beginning. I’ll continue sharing reflections from the process as I move forward, while protecting the deeper synthesis for the final research.
Thank you to everyone who has trusted me enough to be part of this work. I don’t take that lightly.
If you’d like to learn more about the research or share your experience privately, you’re welcome to reach out via DM or the interest form below.