Abstract
Anyone who is active in social network sites will recognise the social media practices described in this book. Many readers will be familiar with the more common rites: they may have ‘friended’ and/or ‘unfriended’ someone on Facebook, written personal and public messages in a Timeline, changed their profile after a romantic break-up and spent a good deal of time going through the profile pictures of a ‘Facebook friend’; practices that have become part of the day-to-day of many (not all!) people with internet knowledge and access. While these practices are becoming more common, and social media are providing more channels and opportunities for communication between individuals in public contexts, some observers are claiming the end of privacy and intimacy. These voices are picturing a doomed vision of the social world characterised by the breakdown of community, erosion of family values and social ties. In Social Media and Personal Relationships, Deborah Chambers draws on research studies in the field of social media and personal life to discuss how social media use is articulated by individuals for conducting personal relationships and, in so doing, contests views claiming the end of intimacy with the introduction of social network sites. She argues that ‘doing’ intimacy is being redefined and shaped by social media use, that is, a ‘mediated intimacy’ supported by multiple communication technologies serving personal ends.
The book is divided into nine chapters through which the author introduces new theoretical and conceptual tools to understand the characteristics of a changing relationship between social media and social interaction. In Chapter 2 of the book, ‘Technologically mediated personal relationships’, Chambers explains the characteristics of this new relationship between technologies and social relationships: personal, diversified and of multifaceted nature. Chapter 3, ‘Conceptualising Intimacy and Friendship’, develops the idea that intimacy and friendship are being redefined into more informal, democratic, equal and elective qualities of interactions. She states that ‘The notion of friendship is functioning to bridge the boundaries between intimate, personal relationships and public, networked community relationships’ (p. 57). Chapter 4, ‘Self-presentation Online’, explains how people display their online self for which Chambers identifies a ‘public personalisation’ of the self that redefines ‘the boundaries between personal and the public’ (p. 62) to generally reflect offline selves. In Chapter 5, ‘Social Media and Teenage Friendship’, she explores the management and articulation of teenage friendship away from parental control but in a context of public networks, in which new norms of mediated friendship are being developed. In Chapter 6, ‘Home, Families and New Media’, the author explores the impact of technology on family identity, parenting styles and new forms of tension and collaboration between children, parents and grandparents. In Chapter 7, ‘Digital dating and romance’, she argues that mediated love is strongly shaped by the ideal conventional romance and is highly calculated. In Chapter 8, ‘Virtual Communities and Online Social Capital’, Chambers claims that social networks are transforming traditional communities into a ‘personal community’. Finally, Chapter 9, ‘Mediated Intimacies’, concludes that ‘mediated intimacies are being approached and categorised largely as friendships’ (p. 165) and are based on informality and personal discourse within ‘personal public networks’ where the self is continually updated.
Chambers has established relevant theoretical and conceptual tools to analyse how intimacy and friendship are being redefined and maintained in a fast-changing world of personal communication technologies. The book shows how social media use is employed to support offline pre-existing relationships with a small number of contacts and maintain weak ties within a context of ‘personalised public networks’. In an admirable effort she has made a further analysis of existing studies in social media communications to provide an argument against those claiming the era of the end of intimacy. Chamber’s book makes a remarkable contribution in critically reconsidering the thesis of liquidity by which personal bonds and intimacy are weakening and rapidly disappearing through the use of social media. This book, however, provides little exploration of negotiations, tensions and differences arising from mediated communications and how and why they are transformed over time. Her arguments are highly robust in distinguishing new distinctive mediated intimacy practices based on diversity and flexibility; and explaining how these practices are serving personal ends in public networked contexts. However, most of the evidence is based on interviews with teenagers and young adults.
Chambers accomplishes her goal of explaining new practices of intimacy and ‘Friendship’ as a result of social media use. This book adds further to family, intimacy and friendship research in the social media context. Academics and students alike will certainly find this book helpful when looking into and analysing new changes in personal life as a result of using social media sites.