New Understandings of Loss: Examining the Role of Reflective Technology Within Bereavement and Meaning-Making

Bereavement causes unique challenges, and bereaved individuals can benefit from support during their grieving process. Grief theory emphasizes the importance of reflection during bereavement, and HCI has established that reflective technology can support wellbeing. However, it remains unclear how to provide bereavement support with reflective technology. We build on constructivist grief psychotherapies to investigate bereavement meaning-making as a focus for reflective technology. We study meaning-making in the context of the digital game GRIS, due to digital games' alignment with meaning-making. To understand the progression of meaningmaking experiences, we conducted a qualitative diary and interview study: 11 bereaved individuals were interviewed on their bereavement experiences, played and completed diaries on GRIS, and were interviewed on their experiences engaging in meaning-making while playing. From these findings, we propose design recommendations for reflective technology to engage with individualized bereavement experiences, embed user agency within reflections, and focus on novel and anti-nihilistic reflections.

• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI.