SOCIALIZATION OF USERS IN THE VIRTUAL SPACE

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Today we can say about the formation of a new environment of the social interaction, which is called a virtual space and which has become the most impressive phenomenon of the beginning of the millennium. In sociology, special attention hasalways been paid to the mechanisms of individuals’ assimilation of behavior patterns, values, rules and norms of society that are relevant to the process of socialization. Today in the social sciences (psychology, pedagogy) there are several approaches that try to study the processes of user’s adaptation to the virtual space, identify the risks associated with them and find ways to make this socialization process in the virtual space manageable, weaken its spontaneity and take control. The sociological approach is traditionally built around ideas of understanding, explaining and predicting the processes that are taking place. This article is devoted to the study of the place occupied by virtual space in the life of modern youth and teenagers, as well as how new forms of social interaction fit into the classical concepts of the individual’s socialization. The article uses materials of representative researches conducted in Odessa among high school students in 2006–2016, which reveal the degree, shape and dynamics of teenagers’ penetration into the virtual environment of interaction, what features of socialization with direct participation of virtual space are found, what values are adopted in virtual space teenagers, what statuses and roles are mastered in it. Based on empirical evidence, the author draws the conclusion that virtual space has penetrated deeply into all social institutions related to the upbringing and education of teenagers, as well as in the structures of their everyday life, and therefore one can assert that it is becoming a new medium of socialization at all its stages and levels.