ABSTRACT
The rise of networked publics (boyd, 2010) has changed how we interact with spouses, coworkers, friends, and others. Compared with more traditional forms of communication, smartphones and social media have created a “hyperconnected” society where instant access to people and information is now the norm. These spaces reduce temporal and geospatial constraints of communication, allowing individuals to maintain distant social ties, rekindle childhood friendships, and form new connections with others sharing common interests (for a discussion of social capital and social support resulting from Internet use, also see the chapter by Trepte and Scharkow in this volume). Networked publics also have a number of unique aordances that enable widespread dissemination, replication, and archivability of content (e.g., boyd, 2010; Treem & Leonardi, 2012), creating much larger audiences for disclosures. Consider when a world leader like President Obama tweets; with a few clicks, his thoughts are shared with millions of followers across the world, can be forwarded to those not following him (through retweets), and are archived by the U.S. Library of Congress for later retrieval (for a discussion of political participation and civic engagement in online media, also see the chapter by Bode and Riddle in this volume).
