The Illusion of Personal Space in a Public World
The Script We Live By
Public spaces aren’t really public anymore—not in the way they used to be. They’re filled with people, yet everyone acts as if they’re alone. Eyes locked on screens. Bags taking up seats. Conversations replaced by silence. The unspoken rule? Don’t acknowledge, don’t interact, don’t disrupt the script.
Sociologist Erving Goffman would call this civil inattention—a way people manage social order in public places. It’s a delicate balance: you recognize others exist, but only just enough to avoid collision. The expectation is that strangers don’t engage, and when they do, even in the most neutral way, it throws everything off.
Take the train ride this morning to St. Gallen. Every seat is taken except for a few, occupied by bags. I see a girl sitting across two spots. I tell her, If you move over, we can both sit. No aggression, just logic. But instead of moving, she runs away. Leaves the entire situation. The other passengers stare at me, as if I’ve done something unspeakable. As if asking to sit down is some kind of transgression.
The Digital Retreat
Goffman studied these interactions long before smartphones, but sociologist Keith Hampton explains how digital technology has intensified social withdrawal.
People no longer expect spontaneous interaction in public because most of their engagement happens through screens. The rise of mobile devices has made public spaces physically shared but socially isolated.
People used to handle minor social negotiations—making room, saying excuse me, adjusting to the presence of others.
Now? Many simply remove themselves from the interaction altogether. It’s easier to retreat into the comfort of digital space than to engage with real-world unpredictability. The girl on the train didn’t just avoid conversation—she avoided negotiating reality itself.
The Illusion of Ownership
But there’s something else at play: the transformation of public space into personal space. People act like shared environments belong to them alone. Bags on seats. Spread-out postures. Headphones in. Any request to acknowledge shared reality is treated like an intrusion.
And when you challenge that illusion—when you ask someone to move their bag, when you break the invisible barrier—they don’t just see it as inconvenient. They see it as a violation. A disruption of the comfortable script where strangers remain distant, predictable, ignorable.
This is why, as Hampton points out, public spaces are losing their function as social arenas. The more people retreat into their personal digital worlds, the less they engage with the organic messiness of real human interaction. They expect the world to be curated, controlled—like their social media feeds. But reality isn’t an algorithm. It pushes back. And when it does, many don’t know how to respond.
The Consequences of the Bubble
This isn’t just about inconvenience. It’s about how we, as a society, are forgetting how to be social outside controlled environments. The rise in social anxiety, the fear of unplanned interaction, the paranoia that even neutral conversations are intrusive—these aren’t coincidences.
Goffman would say people are experiencing frame confusion. The scripts they rely on are breaking down, and rather than adapting, they’re choosing disengagement.
Hampton would argue that the more people interact through digital mediums, the less comfortable they are with real human unpredictability. Together, they explain why public space now feels like a landmine of discomfort, where even the simplest human exchange—Can I sit here?—feels like a breach of some unspoken contract.
Breaking the Script
But here’s the thing: the world doesn’t adjust to personal bubbles. Public space is public.
You can follow the script, pretend you’re alone, avoid all interaction—but eventually, reality will demand engagement. Someone will ask you to move a bag. Someone will speak to you. Someone will force you to recognize that you are not the only person in the world.
And when that moment comes, you have two choices. You can adapt—acknowledge shared space, respond like a human—or you can run. But running won’t change the fact that, sooner or later, the illusion will break.
And when it does, you’ll have to decide: are you part of the world, or just commuting through it?