I’m sure you’ve all had that conversation with your friends; it’s late at night, you’re sleepy, and someone asks the question… “What happens when we die?” or, “What do you think happens after we die?” Maybe the conversation meanders into reincarnation or rebirth; maybe you muse over religion. I set out to understand and categorize what high schoolers think about death and why. 

Before we dive into their responses, take a moment to reflect on your own beliefs and fears about death. Here are the questions that I asked fellow teenagers to answer in any way they saw fit. There are no wrong answers.

• What are your thoughts on death?
•  Are you afraid of death?
• What do you believe happens after you die?
• Why do you believe this?
• Did COVID make you think more about death?

1. What are your thoughts on death?

First thoughts on death itself were scattered across the board. Death was a great motivator, Savion described it as, “a good way to remind yourself how limited your time is.” For Alma, it is a reason to “do all the things (she) want(s) to do.” Others, however, worried about the pain that death brings in its wake. Natalia said, “I try not to think about it much just because it makes me sad to think of losing people close to me or having to see others suffering because of it.” Some felt pretty neutral about it, as Finn pointed out, death is “inevitable,” “It’s just something that happens to everyone.”

2. Are you afraid of death?

Fear of death, or “death anxiety” is called “thanatophobia”, which, if you happen to be familiar with Greek mythology is derived from the name of the ancient Greek god of death “Thanatos” and “Phobos,” or “fear.” According to Dr. Robert Kastenbaum, “the majority of individuals are afraid of death”(Cohut) but most do not experience high enough levels of fear to be classified as having thanatophobia. Most interestingly though, he found that “Young people are just as likely to experience death anxiety as elderly people”(Cohut). 

No one I spoke with expressed enough concern about death to fall into the ‘death anxiety’ range: 

Alma said, “I am not afraid of death….” 

Savion said, “Usually, I am not afraid of death….”

Natalia said, “I’m personally not too afraid of death….”

Savion went as far as to call death “the ultimate relief” but most said they simply tried not to think about the end too much. While some were concerned about how their death would affect their family and friends, others simply wanted to know that they would be remembered. Alma said, she “would like to have a very interesting life and death story….like a crazy murder or coincidence or just some very funny/rare cause of death,” and Finn said, he wouldn’t fear death “if I die of old age after a life of accomplishments.”

3. What do you believe happens after you die?

The thing that really makes us humans fascinated by death is the unknown. We simply can’t stand not being certain of anything- and yet, with death, there is simply no way to know what comes next. People have “come back from death,” in which their hearts stopped beating, sometimes for as long as an hour before being revived. These individuals claim vastly different things, if anything, about what they experienced during that time. Judy Branch, a journalist who wrote a book called Glimpsing Heaven, The Stories and Science of Life After Death told a reporter for National Geographic, “Everybody I interviewed deviated from the traditional theological views. They didn’t see angels necessarily. They don’t float in heaven. It’s not some happy-clappy area of the universe. It’s far more complicated—and interesting—than that”(Worral). Some look down on the earth from above or seem to view their loved ones going about their daily activities; others simply see an unearthly light.  There is no “truth” to believe in about experiences after death, which can be either comforting or terrifying to people. 

Most people whom I asked about their beliefs said that while they hoped they would become a ghost, be reincarnated, or have some form of afterlife, they actually believed that there was, as Alma put it, “logically nothing.” Finn said that he believed simply, “you are gone”. 

4. Why do you believe this?

I wondered why those that I interviewed tended to believe that nothing is the “logical” answer to death when there are so many different theories that came up in their interviews: reincarnation, “some sort of spectator mode in the universe”, spiritual afterlives, ghosts, the list goes on. I was particularly interested in why people held their specific beliefs about death, and I was not disappointed. Alma said that “so many people have ghost stories I think they could be real.” Natalia said comfortingly that she “believe(s) there’s more to life than what we currently think there is.” Finn, ever the scientist, pointed out that he thinks there is nothing after death because “I don’t see any evidence to show otherwise.”

 Maybe, as Savion put it, “I guess I haven’t seen enough to say whether or not there is anything after death.” We are still young; perhaps as we age and gain more life experiences, we will be able to more confidently believe one thing or another about what occurs after death.

5. Did COVID make you think more about death?

I felt it was necessary to include a nod to the pandemic we’ve all been immersed in for over a year now. Generally speaking, if COVID-19 didn’t have a high mortality rate, it wouldn’t really be an issue at all. Every precaution, mask, extra sanitization, and canceled event is charged with the threat of death. Alma said that COVID, “made me realize how close to death I could be at any given moment, which is a good thing because it makes me live a more interesting and carefree life.” To many, however, the threat seemed rather indirect. Natalia said, “I’ve been pretty lucky to live where I do, not having to have anyone close to me get it, so I haven’t really been affected by COVID much, which in turn has made me not dwell too much on the death factor of it.” Finn said that he did not think of death more because of COVID-19, but the pandemic had given him time to dwell on “religion and existence in a broader sense,” while Savion expressed a similar experience.

I was pleasantly surprised by the attitude that everyone who answered my questions approached the topic of death with. Truthfully I had been expecting some very morbid answers. It seems that as young people, we are concerned mostly with what we want to accomplish in our lives before death reaches us. As for what occurs afterward, the most thoughtful response came from Savion, who said that “hopefully whatever happens after death is just what each individual wants to happen after death so that way everyone is happy, or as happy as you can be thinking about everyone you know eventually dying.” Perhaps we will all live to see some scientific miracle and be able to choose between death and immortality, perhaps we will discover the true afterlife and have certainty, but for now, it seems we will simply have to wait, wonder, and believe.

Citations

Cohut, Maria, Ph.D. “Death anxiety: The fear that drives us?” Medical News Today, August 11, 2017. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318895

Worral, Simon. “Tales of the Dead Come Back: How Modern Medicine is Reinventing Death.” National Geographic, September 4, 2014. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/140903-near-death-experiences-bachrach-neurology-booktalk