The distinction between public and private spheres has become increasingly blurred in the digital age. As more aspects of life move online, where information is potentially visible to anyone, traditional barriers dividing public and private realms dissolve. This creates a default condition of publicness for much online activity. In response, Internet users have developed novel ways of demarcating contexts as more public or more private through “gestures” (Vilém Flusser) that range from literal bodily movements to highly context-dependent and media-specific signs. This essay argues that in digital environments, the notions of “public” and “private” take on active, performative dimensions as verbs — “publicking” and “privating.” Users engage in ongoing yet subtle negotiations to establish “spaces of appearance” (Hannah Arendt) and signify communication as directed toward distinct audiences. The essay criticizes classic theories of the public sphere as inadequate for digital life. It proposes recasting the distinction as fluid and gestural rather than stable and institutional. Although overlooked as trivial, micro-gestures of publicking and privating enable users to perform publicness and privateness in a time in which the public has become an act rather than a place. Studying these fleeting yet meaningful gestures provides insight into how users resist the default publicness of contemporary digital life.

在数字时代，公共领域和私人领域之间的区别变得越来越模糊。随着生活的更多方面转移到网上，任何人都可以看到信息，划分公共和私人领域的传统障碍消失了。这为许多在线活动创造了默认的公开条件。作为回应，互联网用户开发出了新的方式，通过“手势”（Vilém Flusser）将环境划分为更公共或更私密，范围从字面上的身体动作到高度依赖于环境和媒体特定的符号。本文认为，在数字环境中，“公共”和“私人”的概念作为动词呈现出积极的、表演性的维度——“公共”和“私有”。用户参与持续而微妙的谈判，以建立“外观空间”（汉娜·阿伦特），并表示针对不同受众的沟通。该文章批评公共领域的经典理论不适用于数字生活。它建议将这种区别重新定义为流动的和姿态的，而不是稳定的和制度性的。尽管被视为微不足道，但公共和私人的微动作使用户能够在公共已成为一种行为而不是一个场所的时代中表现出公共性和私密性。研究这些转瞬即逝但有意义的手势可以深入了解用户如何抵制当代数字生活的默认公开性。