Opacity of the boundaries between real and virtual worlds from the perspective of Facebook users

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between the real and virtual worlds from the perspective of young users of the world's largest social network, Facebook. To achieve the objective, this research involved conducting semi-structured interviews with ten young male and female users of the network who were residing in the Brazilian Federal District. Data were analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective, particularly supported by interpretive theories derived from Social Psychology and Sociocultural Anthropology. It was evident that participants conceive these two categories as distinct from one another, each with its own peculiarities, but maintaining relationships of similarities and differences. A further observation was that the subjective experiences of the research subjects ended up creating a kind of continuum whose existence is juxtaposed between each of these environments, with the boundaries between them becoming opaque or shifting.