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
be seen through how social media has enabled us to share moments experienced with those a part of our private relationships, with people who are considered a part of our public relationships; therefore, blurring the lines between them. Boyd discusses this new publicness that we are experiencing due to social media and how we are able to take out our phone, film an experience with people apart of our private relationships such as eating dinner or going to a concert and post that to a social media platform such as YouTube.
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
support this argument. For example, my Instagram is set to public and sometimes when my friends and I are watching a reality show like The Bachelor or Married at First Sight, I will film the experience, post it to my Instagram story with our commentary in the background and caption it “#TheBachelorAU.” This example displays how an experience with my private relationships has now been shared with my more public relationships through the platform of Instagram; therefore, combining the two types of relationships into one and exemplifying the ways in which the lines between private and public relationships can sometimes be blurred.

Another way in which the affordances of social media have changed the nature of relationships, both private and public can be seen through examining how people take into consideration their audiences and publics when posting content on social media. Boyd argues that when creating private stories for online consumption, people consider how the public telling of their stories may affect not only their audiences, ie loved ones, close friends, co-workers etc, but also their publics, ie other people that see their post, but whom they may not have a close relationship with. This can be exemplified by looking at my own personal social media use and the ways in which I consider both my audiences and publics. For example, I use three social media platforms on a daily basis, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; however, I tend to post different things on each of these platforms due to my audiences and publics I have on each one. For example, on Facebook, I have a lot of family and friends from years ago that I do not talk to anymore; therefore, I tend to post less frequently and am very careful and selective with what I post. On the other hand, my Twitter is entirely different to my Facebook as it is comprised of people whom I have never met. Therefore, I tend to be a lot more open and opinionated about what I post on Twitter, especially in relation to television shows like Married at First sight, because many of the people who follow me do not know me personally. However, my Instagram is the social media platform where I have both my close friends and family as well as people I do not know, because my Instagram account is on public. Therefore, on Instagram I tend to post according to my publics, but before posting I take into consideration how my audiences such as my family might react to the content I am posting. The fact that I take my audiences and publics into consideration when posting content to my Instagram, demonstrates the ways in which the lines between private and public have been blurred as I have combined them into one audience.

The blurring of the lines between public and private relationships can also be seen through Kohl’s concept of third places.
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
them.

It has been evident that the growing development of social media have revealed the ways in which its affordances have changed the nature of relationships, both private and public by blurring the lines between them. This has been clear through the ways in which social media has allowed for us to post moments between your more private relationships and share it to a platform that compromises of both your private relationships and public relationships, how we combine our private relationships and public relationships into one large audience when posting content online and through examining Kohl’s concept of third places and how this can lead to the blurring of private relationships and public relationships.