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This article is based on a collective study carried out by high school and college students among their relatives during the first lockdown in France. We show that intimacy is not used in an ontological way: it is a practical category, used by the researcher with their peers to filter the information provided to the research team. Thus, not only does the use of intimacy preserve the personal life of (apprentice) sociologists, but it is also revelatory of their professional socialization.