Beyond engineered intimacy: Navigating social media platforms to manage intimate relationships

This chapter utilizes a multi-sited case study composed of three distinct social media platforms: Badoo, CouchSurfing and Facebook. It aims to combine user profile analysis with analysis of users' feature choices, which some scholars denominate 'ethnography of affordances'. The chapter looks at the role of social media platforms as intimacy mediators and explores the way in which adults adopt and adapt the technical affordances of these platforms to create and develop personal relationships. It focuses on verification and reputation systems, private features and privacy settings. The chapter analyses the workings of these features and examines the relationship of users with them when managing their intimate relationships. Badoo and CouchSurfing offer optional verification systems to validate users' identities in order to generate trust and safety among users. CouchSurfing's verification system involves verification of the user's identity, telephone number and location. In this case, the verification of location is important because of the hospitality exchange objective of the platform.