Direct Message

The feature of sending a direct message is, in essence, a way to have very public conversations in a very public place but in a more private manner. The nature of the two kinds of messages people can send—comments and DM—has light implications for personal intimacy and public behavior. The best place to begin discussing direct messaging in this regard seems to be with its potentially 'intimate' nature when friends, family, and even acquaintances utilize its space to enter the more personal realm of message-sending.

Of course, intimacy is a sliding scale, even in familial life. Unintimate messages sent between humans can still involve a potent form of communication when two people space apart, and an opportunity such as the one offered by direct messaging allows for closeness that, say, a public reply would never venture into.