Trivial social media posts create emotional intimacy through ambient awareness
Evidence
One of the most important benefits is the previously mentioned ambient awareness of others, or the development of “digital intimacy.” While Twitter is frequently characterized as a chattering stream of irrelevant pieces of information, these pieces of information, gossip, small talk, and trivia serve to create and maintain emotional connections between members of the networked audience. … Crawford argues that it is the “small details and daily events” that give “a sense of the rhythms and flows of another’s life.” Regardless of whether the details given are significant or even truthful, Twitter streams feel like listening to a voice. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 562
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines ‘ambient awareness’ and ‘digital intimacy’ as core field vocabulary, plus introduces ‘phatic communication’.
- SEED: Angle: the paradox that phatic trivia — precisely what critics dismiss as noise — is the actual relational glue of social platforms; a defense of ‘meaningless’ posting.
- XREF: connects to: Social media spaces create an anonymous intimacy that is neither public nor private — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 45; Users identify ambient awareness as Twitter’s most valued benefit — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 563; Social media turned attention capture into mutual self-display at unprecedented scale — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1062 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Social media spaces create an anonymous intimacy that is neither public nor private
#corroborates(0.88) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 45 - Users identify ambient awareness as Twitter’s most valued benefit
#exemplifies(0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 563 - Social media turned attention capture into mutual self-display at unprecedented scale
#expands(0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1062 - Screen-based interaction retains the emotional exposure of bodily copresence.
#qualifies(0.75) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 103