The lonely raccoon at the ball: designing for intimacy, sociability, and selfhood.

Designing for sociable systems requires, among other abilities, a sensitivity to the meanings, structures, and nuances of technology-mediated experiences that are simultaneously felt by users to be intimate and also social. Such a sensitivity is not easily acquired, and design researchers have recommended the use of social theories to guide designers' readings of technology-mediated social experiences. We use philosopher Michel Foucault's theory of identity (and social power, discourse, sexuality, creativity, and style) known as "the care of the self," as a scaffold with which to produce a sensitive interpretation of the intimacy (and expert social creative) practices of adult users of the virtual world Second Life (SL). This reading sheds light on several skilled and creative intimacy practices in SL. It also offers a philosophically grounded hermeneutic strategy for designers interested in analyzing intimate experiences.