ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a particular field within digital anthropology—that of personal communication. It shows that the advent of digital technologies has had particularly personal consequences, because communication itself is so central to the way relationships are constituted and negotiated. Restrictions of access to certain websites and to mobile phones and other communication channels are therefore to be understood as attempts to preserve the boundaries between social spheres and as forms of organizational control on attention. The availability of multiple channels has become a vehicle for circumventing institutional regulations and for enabling communication between people in different institutional settings. Synchronicity/asynchronicity is without doubt the factor that has the strongest effect on communication practices, because it carries such strong implications for social interaction. Just as in the case of intimate and personal communication, anthropology has much to offer to explain the interaction between digital media and the social norms, agency and practices that emerge in their usage.
