Spouse-busting: Intimacy, adultery, and surveillance technology

Strangers You May Know: Social Surveillance and Intimacy Online

Online social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn regularly use People You May Know (PYMK) algorithms to encourage connectivity among their users. We argue that these algorithms have the unintended effect of making users’ interactions more visible, which can deter them from being intimate online. To test this theory, we analyze data from a large online social network that lets users buy and exc...

The Role of Intimacy in the Evolution of Technology

In this article, Georges Bataille’s notion of intimacy will be re-interpreted to show that it has a role to play in the evolution of technology. The specifically human form of intimacy can be experienced through the successful adoption of technological devices that have the qualities necessary to fit in and work out in our life context. If they manage to become part of our life, then we experie...

Busting myths about guidelines.

Adultery by Doctor: Artificial Insemination, 1890-1945

Virtual Adultery: No Physical Harm, No Foul?

New forms of social media and virtual communication are changing the ways in which we meet new people and develop meaningful relationships. In today’s world, you can skype a long-distance significant other or join an Internet chat room to find others who share a similar interest. While, in many ways, the Internet has facilitated our ability to interact with others unencumbered by geographical l...