SUBJECTIVE EVALUATIONS OF VIRTUAL COMMUNICATION: EMPIRICAL MEASUREMENT

СУБЪЕКТИВНЫЕ ОЦЕНКИ ВИРТУАЛЬНОГО ОБЩЕНИЯ: ЭМПИРИЧЕСКОЕ ИЗМЕРЕНИЕ

Колесникова Надежда Ивановна

студент, кафедра социологии и организации работы с молодежью, Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет,

РФ, г. Белгород

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to present the results of the author's exploratory research in the direction of studying the features of the virtual space of the subjective perception of communication by social actors. It is shown that people spend a lot of time on virtual communication, rarely touch on personal topics, and the average workload is 3-6 people a day.

АННОТАЦИЯ

Целью настоящей статьи является представление результатов авторского поискового исследования в направлении изучения особенностей виртуального пространства субъективного восприятия общения социальными акторами. Показано, что люди тратят много времени на виртуальное общение, редко касаются личных тем и средняя нагрузка составляет 3-6 человек в день.

Keywords: virtual communication, social networks, exploratory research, sociological research, subjective assessment.

Ключевые слова: виртуальное общение, социальные сети, поисковое исследование, социологическое исследование, субъективная оценка.

Today's life is impossible without the use of electronic communication methods. There are several types and forms of such communication, however, many researchers of psychology and sociology point to its destructive nature depending on the attitude and perception of virtual communication (in particular, in social networks). This problem actualizes the issue of collecting primary empirical data, based on which it would be possible to obtain approximate information about the cultural and social aspects of virtual communication.

To this end, a study was conducted in April 2021. A total of 149 people were interviewed. The following hypotheses were put forward: live and virtual communication have equal weight; people spend at least an hour a day on virtual communication; the main topics of communication are similar interests and current affairs; daily communication occurs with no more than 3-6 users.

The results of the study show that 34.2% of respondents spend about 1-4 hours on communication every day, and another 36.2% regularly. The first hypothesis is confirmed, but the real numbers turn out to be much larger.

Figure 1. Distribution of answers to the question: «Estimate how long it takes you to communicate on social networks (Internet)»

The most frequent topics of communication are similar interests and current affairs (40.3% and 43%). An interesting fact is the much rarer discussion of personal issues (only 15.4%). Negligible number of respondents prefer to talk about everything. Some functional role of virtual communication is obvious.

Figure 2. Distribution of answers to the question: «Choose only one topic that you discuss most often during communication on social networks, or specify it in the form below»

The subjective average estimate of the number of actors with whom the respondents interact is reduced to 3-6 people (75.2%).

Thus, almost all the hypotheses put forward are confirmed empirically with a small margin of error. The establishment of a small number of personal topics discussed is in a certain contradiction with the position of the destructive role of virtual communication is explained rather by the functional role of social networks in this process.

References:

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