Kohl's Concept Of Third Places

Social media constantly surrounds us, whether we are at work, home or out with friends, social media plays a role. Our increased use of social media has revealed the many ways in which its affordances have changed the nature of relationships, both private and public by blurring the lines between them. This will be demonstrated through the ways in which social media enables us to share moments experienced in more private relationships, with your more public relationships, how people consider their audiences and publics when posting content on social media and finally, through investigating Kohl’s concept of third places.

The ways in which the affordances of social media have changed the nature of relationships, both private and public, can
Boyd provides the example of the famous home video that ultimately went viral in 2007, called ‘Charlie Bit my Finger.’ This example illustrates how a private intimate family experience, has been shared with people apart of their public relationships as well such as followers and the rest of the world, through the social media platform YouTube; therefore, blurring the line between their private and public relationships as they have become combined into one audience. When reflecting on my social media use I can think of a number of examples that could also be used to
Kohl defines third places as an unrestricted place that young people find for self-expression and reflection, that is away from private relationships such as family and friends. Examples of these could be Tumblr or twitter, where people can freely express themselves without worrying about what people apart of their more private relationships will think. Although this may be the purpose of using platforms such as these, what can often happen is that people can potentially begin to form friendships with people online through a common interest in a celebrity, sport or television show etc. For example, I follow quite a few celebrities on Twitter and a lot of the time when scrolling through my Twitter timeline, I see stories where people have built relationships online and have then met in person and become really good friends. This example demonstrates how although people may use particular social media sites to express themselves to their publics, away from the potential judgement of those apart of their private relationships, they can potentially meet people online and their twitter or Tumblr then becomes a platform that consists of people from both private and public relationships, therefore, blurring the lines between