Social Media,Work and Nonwork Interface: A Qualitative Inquiry

Flourishing social media, easy access to smartphones and tablets, and ready availability of the internet in the past decade have made it possible for people to be connected to social media almost anywhere at any time. In this qualitative study, we interviewed 41 individuals in multiple professions in the United Kingdom to examine the role of social media in how they navigate their personal and professional lives. We find social media to be a virtual domain that has boundaries with nonvirtual personal and professional domains. Focusing on spatial and temporal boundaries, our findings revealed four boundary transition modes employees used to switch between the social media domain and their work and nonwork domains: boundary switch avoidance; disciplined boundary switch; integrated boundary switch; and boundary switch addiction. We also describe 15 mechanisms through which engaging with social media platforms enriches or conflicts with individuals’ personal and professional lives. Our findings extend work-nonwork scholarship and boundary theory to include virtual as well as nonvirtual domains.