Networked intimacy: Algorithmic friendship and scalable sociality

Abstract

This article asks whether a crisis of intimacy exists in the digital era to provoke an enquiry into the extent to which social media are transforming or transformed by personal relationships. I address the nature of late modern intimacy through the lens of ‘friendship’ and consider why Facebook embraces this affiliation. I then ask whether contemporary forms of public intimacy pre-date or are configured by social media. Software-centred approaches including algorithmically engineered friendship are considered to cast light on public intimacy, privacy and trust. The implications of cross-cultural ethnographic research by Miller et al. are then considered to highlight user agency. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp have the potential to liberate certain users by controlling group size and degree of privacy, as ‘scalable sociality’ in a polymedia environment. I conclude by arguing for a synthesis of political economic perspectives and cross-cultural studies to emphasise user agency in future research.