Redesigning Families
How Korean Youth Rewire Sociability Through Platforms and Interfaces
This MA thesis examines how young Koreans use online social media to seek a sense of belonging and intimacy that is often missing within traditional family structures.
Combining participant observation, interviews, and interface-based case studies (KakaoTalk, Zepeto), this research explores how specific platform features—avatars, gestures, emojis, memes, and ambient communication—mediate new forms of sociality and intimacy online.
Rather than using these tools passively, users actively appropriate and reshape platform structures, bending the intended functions of communication tools to build alternative communities.
The interplay between interface design and user practice reveals how emotional support and recognition, once embedded in family life, are being reconfigured through small design-mediated interactions—emoji exchanges, avatar poses and gestures, and the rhythmic flow of group chats. These practices show how interface design and user agency intersect to enable new forms of presence, care, and intimacy within dispersed yet connected digital environments.