| Summary: | This article is a sociological analysis of the social networking site Facebook. It is based on two premises: (1) that Facebook is a case of technical association, in which the individual and the relations between individuals are in part shaped by algorithms and interfaces, and that (2) this form of association becomes particularly salient in the culture of individualism, which promotes an expressive self doing self-work. The article is composed of two parts. In the first, the author describes the consequences of the fact that a Facebook friendship is not completely a human affair, but rather an affair between humans and technology that has agency. Modifying the classical concept of sociability offered by Simmel, the author analyzes Facebook in terms of 'algorithmic sociability. In the second part the author describes how Facebook's interface and the relations that Facebook arranges configure the individual. Facebook is analyzed in terms of Foucault's concept of 'technologies of the self.
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