The Evolution of Digital Third Spaces

From AOL Instant Messenger and MySpace to Minecraft and Fortnite—ever-changing, but never totally unique.

The last five years or so I have heard more and more talk about “third spaces.” I don’t mean that to say that this concept is new, but I do think the term may be more commonly used in the recent past than it was when I was a teenager—I don’t remember anyone using it in the 2000s.

A “third space,” if you’ve never heard of the term, is a place in which a g…