Closeness and Distance Conflicts on the Social Media Platform WhatsApp

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes that, beyond the familiar reasons for WhatsApp's widespread use—such as its cost‐free nature, user‐friendly interface, and immense popularity—the app possesses features that evoke common, often unconscious, psychodynamics linked to universal conflicts between unity and separation, or the negotiation of closeness and distance in relationships, making it particularly compelling. Drawing on two vignettes, the paper examines how conflicts around closeness and distance are expressed through WhatsApp interactions, inviting broader reflection on WhatsApp use. It contributes to a growing body of psychoanalytic work on increasingly nuanced facets of social media use, and of WhatsApp in particular. The material was drawn from psychoanalytically informed, unstructured interviews with emerging adults about their mobile phone use. Across seven of the eight interviews, WhatsApp emerged spontaneously as a distinct theme. Two especially compelling vignettes were selected for analysis, which focused on the interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics evident in the narratives.