Noaman 1

Shaharyar Akram Noaman

Professor Santosh Khadka

English 113B

02 March 2020

Instagram and Restaurants Under the Light of Space

The way of life promoted by society can get really hectic and burdensome; work, school,

family and a whole lot of responsibilities follow closely. How, and where, to manage this stress

and workload is a lot more tangible by one’s ability to understand the concept of place and space.

They can be broken down into first place, which is a part of private space; second place, which is

a part of public; and third place which can include both private and public spaces. First place is

considered to be home, second place is the place of one’s work and third place is considered to

be the place in between ones’ work and home places. Social media and hangout spots are places

visited by most people, if not all, and it is important in my opinion, to be able to figure out where

these examples fall in the light of place and space. With the development of technology and

infrastructure, it is easy to confuse Instagram, as an example of a social media platform, and

restaurants, as an example of infrastructure, between public and private spaces, but rest assured,

both of these spaces serve as a third space for their customers.

Instagram is complicated to configure under public or private places, which leads to my

argument that Instagram falls under the grey category of the liminal sphere. Instagram is an

online platform (owned by Facebook) under the web 2.0, which allows its users to post pictures

and videos which can be viewed by the public or one’s social circle. According to an article,

‘Sporting Safe in the Liminal Sphere’, by Santosh Khadka, a liminal sphere is described as “The

Sphere where the distinction between private, and public sphere gets blurred” (p.216). A liminal
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sphere or space can be described as the middle ground between the two distinct spaces of public

and private. Instagram is highly complicated to be categorized as solely a public or a private

place and it ends up in this confusing category of liminal sphere. The key components to a public

sphere is its ability to be open for all public at all times, according to Khadka, “the term public

sphere referred to a social realm where debates and discussions on the matter of public concern

took place” (p.207). This definition does make Instagram seem like it is a public space, as

Instagram gives its users an option of keeping their account public and open for everyone to see,

where they can share and observe publicly at any time of the day, but it gets complicated when

users make their accounts private, when a lot of the corporation’s privacy policies come into

play.

However, private spaces are different from public spaces, private spaces, according to

Jürgen Habermas (1991), “comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say the realm

of commodity exchange and of social labor” (p.30). In layman terms, a place which promotes

this sense of privacy and unavailability for the rest of the public. Keeping that in mind, an article

from the business insider claims that Instagram hired a marketing agency for the purpose of

gathering data from its users, including their locations, photos and bios in order to create a user

database, which in turn helps Instagram to display advertisements to its users according to their

recent interests and activities. Can it be considered a public place if one cannot access another

user’s profile because it is locked? Can it still be considered as a public space if a user’s

information is being recorded unknowingly for the purpose of marketing and their privacy is

violated? No, it cannot. These complications are the reason why Instagram does not fall under

the two traditional spaces of public and private, therefore creating this category which re-
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conceptualizes private and public spaces known as the liminal space which includes aspects of

both public and private spaces.

Moreover, unlike Instagram, restaurants and marketplaces should be considered as

private spaces, finely disguised behind a façade of public spaces. The first thought that comes to

mind, leans towards restaurants being public places but in reality, they are not. They do have a

few characteristics which makes one think that they might be public places, for example,

restaurants promote human contact and social activities, people usually visit restaurants to hang

out with their friends, to study, to have conversations or even just to relax. Most of the

restaurants are often safe spaces, welcoming and accommodating to all types of customers.

Although, restaurants portray a lot more characteristics of a private place, for example, most

restaurants have time restrictions and they are not open at all times whereas a public space

should be accessible to public at all times. People tend to forget that all the services in a

restaurant come at a cost, the part of the public who can’t afford to buy food would not be

accommodated in a restaurant whereas a public place is supposed to be free of cost. Another

characteristic which makes a restaurant a private place is that the public does not hold authority

to create or change policies but instead, it is in the hands of the managing staff. It might not be

that common of a fact, but a lot of the high-end restaurants at country clubs are not even open for

all, rather only for its members, taking away that freedom of it being a public place. Lastly,

similar types of high end restaurants have certain dress policies implemented, i.e. restaurants at

prestigious golf clubs only allow entry to its customers who have long trousers or pants as a part

of their clothing and deny entry to someone who might be wearing shorts, some other restaurants

enforce the law of wearing a blazer, or coat, as part of the dress code, and whomsoever is not

wearing one might be denied entry. The dress laws according to Newport beach and country club
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states, “Skirts and dresses more than 4 inches above the knee are not permitted. Denim will be

allowed in the clubhouse and on the patio provided it is tasteful and in good repair. Denim must

be free of tears, holes, rips, tatters or frays. “Management will determine denim in good taste”

(Newport Beach & Country Club). Such laws show that the customers don’t have a say in the

dress policies proving the point and characteristics of a private space rather than those of a public

space.

Even though Instagram and restaurants differ in their selection of spaces, one being

liminal and the other being private, both these spaces should be considered as third spaces.

According to Ray Oldenburg: “The third place is a generic designation for a great variety of

public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of

individuals beyond the realms of home and work” (p.16). Third space, is one which makes one

transition between work and home. As Dr. Adam Fraser explains in his video about ‘Dr. Adam

Fraser explains the Third Space’, “It’s how we leverage the transitional gap in what we do.”

(2:13-2:18). What and how we manage the space in between our work and home tasks is the

whole idea of third space, the third space is that moment of transition between one role or task to

the next role or task.

Instagram has a number of characteristics which hint towards the verification of its

authority to be a third space. It provides a neutral ground for its users. Ray Oldenburg (1999)

says, “there must be a neutral ground upon which people gather” and “where individuals may

come and gay as they please, in which none are required to play host and in which all feel at

home” (p.22). Users can visit Instagram whenever they feel like be it at home, work or school, be

it day or night fulfilling the neutral ground characteristic. Another reason to advocate Instagram

as a third space is because Oldenburg (1999) says that “a place must have regulars for it to be a
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third place”, and Sofia Irfan, an interviewee, from my interview in the video stated that, “she

uses Instagram almost every day and that also for at least forty-five minutes to an hour a day”

(Project Space, 3: 40-3:45).

Fig. 1. Number of Instagram users by Newberry, Christina. Hootsuite Blog.

The Statistical image above, also shows that 500 million people use Instagram stories on

a daily basis, which means they actively use Instagram every single day (Hootsuite blog). A lot

of people feel comfortable having it as a part of their daily lifestyle and routine, as a way to

showing their feelings and sharing moments they cherish online with their friends. Also,

according to a survey I conducted, which asked people if they thought of Instagram as a third

space, and 90% of the fifty respondents considered Instagram to be a third space, 8% were

unsure, and 2% did not consider it to be a third space. The survey acknowledges the fact that

Instagram is a third space and a small percentage disagree due to the reason that they did not use

Instagram, hence did not consider it to be a third space.

Similarly, restaurants too, are third spaces. They too have characteristics mentioned by

Ray Oldenburg in the ‘The great good place (Third places)’. Firstly, a restaurant provides a safe

space for its customers to converse. Oldenburg (1999) advocates that, “[n]othing more clearly

indicates a third place than that the talk there is good; that it is lively, scintillating, colorful and

engaging” (p.28). Third places are known to be a place where one can rejuvenate and recover,
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sharing thoughts and feelings with friends provides that to a person making restaurants a good

example of a third space. Moreover, restaurants may also serve as a need for its customers to

enjoy their time and make an experience out of their visit by serving good food, which turns the

customers to regulars. Just like Instagram, restaurants tend to have regulars making it fall under

the category of third space. I sent out a questionnaire, asking fifty people if they considered

restaurants as third spaces and 96% of the respondents agreed with restaurants to be third spaces,

and the other 4% disagreed. The respondents who disagreed wrote back saying they could not, at

times afford to go and eat and restaurants, to which I argued that a lot of restaurants offer low

cost fast food, with which they can enjoy all the benefits involved to rest, relax and recover.

With so much confusion in recognizing spaces, it is very hard strictly categorizing

restaurants and Instagram under specific spaces, therefore Instagram fits the description of a

liminal space as it would be incorrect to state it as a distinct traditional public or private spaces.

Though restaurants might seem like public spaces, they lean towards private spaces due to

public’s lack of decision making in its policies, time restrictions etc. Albeit, it would be fair to

say that these places both provide its customers the medium to rest, relax and recover, both in

different ways, hence making them both third spaces.

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Works Cited

Club, Newport Beach Country. “Dress Code.” Newport Beach Country Club,

www.newportbeachcc.com/dress-code.

“Dr Adam Fraser Explains The Third Space.” Youtube.com, Adam Fraser, 9 July 2012,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpk_dssZXqs&t=220s.

Habermas Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category

of Bourgeois Society. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1991.

Irfan, Sofia. Personal Interview. 17 February 2020.

Khadka, Santosh. “Sporting Safe in the Liminal Sphere.” Emerging Pedagogies in the Networked

Knowledge Society Advances in Knowledge Acquisition, Transfer, and Management, 30 Nov.

2013, pp. 206–216., doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-4757-2.ch011.

Newberry, Christina. “37 Instagram Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2020.” Hootsuite Social

Media Management, 2 Dec. 2019, blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics/.

Oldenburg. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other

Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Marlowe and Company, 1999.

Noaman, Shaharyar Akram, director. Project Space. Youtube,17 February 2020,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12RiOf7F85c.