“Ambient intimacy” ? A link on a website has brought me here. As I read about this new online jargon I realized that its interpretation is subject to how open you are to get people to know you. Drawing a parallel with face-to-face interactions, “ambient” would be the subway car, the elevator, the waiting room at the doctor’s, the coffee shop, the snack bar or any public place you stop at and “intimacy” would be engaging in a conversation about yourself and your views with a stranger in a voice loud enough so others could hear and possibly join in. How often do we do that ? Me, personally ? Never. So I can fairly claim that “ambient intimacy” assumes a new dimension in our on-line world when we are away from other, behind our computers or mobile phones (as I am now). For me, it seems to bring me the comfort I would not otherwise have to walk away from any discussion any time I feel like, which, come to think of it, appears to contradict the very concept of intimacy (that, by the way, implies “closeness”, “proximity”). Since such “closeness” can only materialize in face-to-face encounters, the bottom line is that maybe the most precise word for it would have been “ambient small talk”.

http://roychristopher.com/ambient-identity