EMOTIONALITY IN THE DIGITAL SPACE

Abstract

The article discusses the problem of expressing emotions in social networks as a special case of adapting the digital space to the needs of users. Emotions, representing an integral (mental and physiological) reaction of a personality to a phenomenon or event, are an integral part of everyday life, reflecting a person's attitude to objects of external and internal reality in the direct form of experiences. The digital environment, expanding its influence, presupposes significant changes in many aspects of communicative behavior, including the manifestation of emotions. The main question posed in the article is whether in the digital space the “natural” is absorbed by the “artificial” through a fundamental transformation of traditional forms of communication? The article presents the results of an empirical study carried out by a questionnaire survey among students in Moscow. The research goal is to study the possibilities, methods, feasibility and features of expressing emotions in social networks. The subject of the research is the forms, nature, features of emotionality manifestations in the digital space. The research hypothesis is as follows: despite the main characteristics of digital communications (speed, brevity, promptness of information, accessibility), emotions inherent in ordinary human communication also find expression and transmission channels; at the same time, the manifestation of emotions with an obviously necessary change in the form and tools does not lose its significance while communicating in social networks. The results of the research presented in the article show that the emotional component of communication does not lose its relevance in the digital space. The need for the expression of emotions by users was quickly recorded by the creators and developers of social networks, who proposed a number of symbolic expressions of emotions to fulfill the need that arose. By the analysis of methods and possibilities of expressing emotions during communications in social networks, the article concludes about the adaptive characteristics of the digital environment for usual and, at the same time, necessary for a person communication attributes.