Sonic Intimacies and Digital Boundary Work: Navigating Privacy, Voice and Connection Among Finnish Youth

Abstract

This article examines how Finnish young people (ages 16–19) navigate digital intimacy through voice, privacy, and platform use. Drawing on reflexive thematic analysis of asynchronous focus group discussions conducted on Discord, the study explores how participants manage exposure and vulnerability in digital spaces through selective boundary work. Voice, in particular, emerges as a key marker of intimacy and privacy: a conduit for affective connection, yet also a site of corporeal risk. The study proposes a relational framework, where privacy, intimacy, and voice are co-constitutive and introduces the concept of ‘intimacy architectures’ to describe how young people calibrate access and proximity across platforms. Findings show that youth strategically favour ephemeral, history-free communication tools, avoid sharing phone numbers, and resist voice-based interaction depending on cultural and linguistic context. These practices illustrate a nuanced negotiation of digital embodiment, identity, and control. The study contributes to emerging scholarship on sonic intimacy and offers new insights into youth digital culture in a datafied society.