Connection as sociability. Mediation of social networks in youth loneliness
Abstract
Social networks are connection infrastructures that produce sense and experience of loneliness. It is on that premise that we have conducted interviews of youngsters conducted during the 2020 spring lockdown. From them, we suggest that connection is a socio-technical process capable of narratively structure emerging meanings of loneliness. It unfolds in three membranes that referrring to: the means of contact and the beliefs around immediacy; the bonding network, in a conflicting logic of exposure and intimacy; and projections, which points to the imaginary basis of otherness and the mechanisms of generalization of the other. We will thus highlight the contradictory sociability to which digital mediations lead, between the drive for fluidity and transience of a dynamic social life and the assembly of an interpersonal network in which the self can obtain presence and value.
Keywords
Social networks, Loneliness, Mental health, Youth, ConnectionReferences
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