Digital sociality and the reshaping of network participation: the emergence of phatic imbalances

Abstract

This article theorizes phatic imbalances as emergent effects of how participation and presence are reorganized in contemporary digital sociality. It argues that participation in digital networks has become increasingly transactional and positional, oriented toward sustaining visibility and availability rather than exchanging meaning. Drawing on work on networked sociality, weak ties and deep mediatization, the article conceptualizes phaticity and phatic work as priori conditions of digital participation. It introduces digital proxemics as the sociotechnical production of presence, distance and relational positioning in environments structured by telepresence, virtuality and AI-infused affordances. Phatic imbalances arise when infrastructural demands for continuous phatic presence exceed the cognitive and temporal capacities of subjects, producing overload, hollowed presence and machine-modulated rhythms of interaction. By linking participation, phaticity and digital proxemics, the article offers a diagnostic lens for understanding how digital infrastructures reshape attention, presence and communicative agency in AI-saturated environments.