Shalimov, A. B. Dialectic of the Social and Individual in Social Networks

Abstract: The author of the article views social networks such as Vkontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki and Twitter as a social institution where dialectic of the individual and social is expressed in interiorization (subjectivization) of social experience and exteriorization (objectivization) of individual experience. In social networks users interiorize their values of free communication, antagonism against prohibitions, particular social roles and attitude to other social institutions. The author of the article pays special attention to such phenomena as the friends list and re-posts on the Internet. Social networks make us think of friendship as something discrete, situational and practical. Re-posts are viewed as the part of degradation of communication in social networks because they cause literal interpretation of any personal content in communication processes and loss of identity. In social networks particular practices are rather exceptional and usually appear in the process of exteriorization of the most successful and popular forms and contents that are created in the course of information exchange and continuous communication. In social networks exteriorization is closely connected with creativity and generation of new forms and contents in the information Internet matrix. The author of the article concludes that in the dialectic process of interiorization of social experience being replaced by exteriorization of individual experience in social networks, our free will allows us to choose between a creative act of personality socialization/initiation and the loss of human identity through on-line communication.

Keywords: