The boundaries between the private and public spheres are blurred on social media, leading to people invading the private space of others, which often leads to disputes online. These conflicts are often unintentional and can be reduced when social media users recognize and respect boundaries.
How is it possible to get into an argument with people you’ve never met? I got to thinking about this after watching an argument on social media. Since social media is all about connecting with other people, we meet a wide variety of people online. As we use social media, we often witness arguments between people. In some cases, these people have never met each other before, and yet they still argue with each other, often with extreme language. There must be a trigger for these people to turn violent toward others, but what is happening on social media?
Online conflict is not a recent phenomenon. As soon as the internet became widely available, people began to interact online, and with that came a whole host of problems. One of the biggest social issues has been people attacking others in the name of anonymity. They have taken advantage of the fact that they don’t have to reveal themselves online, and this has led to conflicts and disputes with many people. However, there’s an important distinction between online anonymity and social media conflict. Social media is a service that enables social connections between individuals, so anonymity is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, ironically, the lack of anonymity on social media makes it more prone to disputes.
On SNSs, you have to fully express yourself before you can make social connections, and in the process, you establish your place in the network. For example, on Facebook, people post their thoughts and opinions, and on Instagram, they post everyday photos to create their own “private sphere”. This private space is both a way to express oneself and a boundary between others and oneself. People feel comfortable in their private space, take ownership of it, and give it a sense of identity. When this space is invaded by others, they feel uncomfortable and become hyper-vigilant, which can lead to violent behavior. In most cases, people will immediately try to stop an invasion of their personal space, but the problem is that you can’t directly stop someone on social media.
The openness of social media means that the private space you’ve carefully created is actually a public space that anyone can access. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage, as it makes it easy for anyone to invade someone else’s private space. It’s like having a room in the middle of a busy sidewalk with tons of people walking by. Not only is the private space in the public space harder to protect and harder to prevent others from invading, but it also makes it easier for people to come and go as they please. As the boundaries between the private and public spheres blur, people become confused, which leads to irritation and conflict online.
Unlike online disputes in the past, where anonymity was guaranteed, disputes on SNS without anonymity are caused by the coexistence of openness and personal closure. The fact that the demand for closed social networks has increased in recent years shows that many people are tired of the constant invasion of their personal space. They want their space to be absolutely uninvaded.
It’s ironic that while the anonymity of traditional online disputes has been lost, similar disputes are occurring on social media in different forms. This makes it seem like we can’t completely stop online conflict. However, the solution to creating a peaceful social network is both simple and very difficult.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Is it really possible to get into an argument with people you’ve never met before? It would be virtually impossible. No one wants to get into a heated argument with someone they don’t know. Conflicts on social media stem from the frequent invasion of personal space, which is to say that we don’t feel the need to invade other people’s personal space in our daily lives.
Everyone has their own personal space, and they know that the other person has one too. No one walks into the room of someone they’ve never met before and starts prying into their personal experiences. Most of the time, invading someone’s personal space on social media is not intentional, but a mistake that comes from confusing the public and private spheres. However, many people forget that there is a clear distinction between the two, and perceive all of their online space as public, which leads to unintentional conflicts. If we recognize the need for this distinction and make an effort to avoid invading other people’s personal space on social media as we do in our daily lives, we can reduce unnecessary conflicts.
In SNS, the closed private sphere of individuals is forced into the public sphere by the openness of SNS, and as a result, the private sphere is invaded and people become violent toward others. However, the openness and closeness of SNS are inevitable for the formation of social relationships. In order to solve the problem, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between one’s own sphere and the sphere of others on SNS, and try to respect the boundaries.
