INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORK DEPENDENCY ON PERCEPTION OF PUBLIC SPACE OF THE CITY.

Abstract

Throughout history, it has always been important for a person to believe in something and be dependent on something (be it a religion, a cult, a group of like-minded people, virtual popularity, rules of video games, etc.). It created a protective effect, gave a sense of involvement (overcoming loneliness) and developed self-confidence. At the same time, this phenomenon turned into emotional dependence and stimulated the person to perform a certain set of actions to get a portion of emotions.At the beginning of the 21st century, over 3 billion people (40% of the population) use virtual public space to communicate with each other [5]. Accordingly, the real public spaces of cities are experiencing decadence. Decadence manifests itself precisely in information that carries space.An individual, moving around the city, is concentrated mainly on himself or in the virtual world in his smartphone. Morover, he is constantly in a hurry and has no time. All the services that he used to apply for here, in this square, are now in his hand and are carried out with one click on the screen. The exchange of emotions and impressions between friends and relatives more and more often takes place in video messages, sound messages, or in chat rooms, using stamped animoji and gifs. The opinion of an authoritative intelligent person is also no longer the subject of a search in a cafe (as in times of “ penny universities”), since more than half of people have a social network profiles and are willing to communicate with you in virtual space. Furthermore, social networks give fast virtual love and attention from completely strangers, something that people have been working on for a long time and which they deserve for years in real life. A successful photo or text and commenting on it, cause an emotional “pat”, which physiologicaly can replace hugs and meeting with friends in a public space.In this context, modern city spaces with eternal haste, annoyed people, public transport, buzzing sounds and unpleasant smells cause stress and desire to rather cross them, or again return to virtual space. Public spaces are gradually losing their communicative function.The leading direction of projects that win the European Public Prize for urban space [7] shows that developers in recent years have been interested in transforming historic, locally known public spaces into open-air museums or so-called “Instagram spaces ".Do not forget about the dependence on video games, which in 2018 officially received the status of a mental disorder.Virtual, painted public spaces in video games, drawing inspiration from very real urban spaces, for people suffering from video-gambling addiction, over time replace the physically tangible ones.Caused by changes in technological culture and the emergence of new emotional dependencies, the style of behavior and lifestyle of modern man is also undergoing changes. These changes are neither good nor bad in substance, but rather a natural process of development. Most importantly, from the point of view of the urbanist- architect, is the realization that the appearance, filling and content of public spaces of cities is transforming. Some features are gradually dying out of their own necessity and other appearing, making the public space interesting for a city dweller already with a set of other emotional dependencies.