https://doi.org/10.25198/2077-7175-2020-3-105
SELF-DETERMINATION AS A VALUE RESOURCE OF MILLENNIALS' PERSONALITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA
L. S. Yakovleva
Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia
e-mail: l.yakovleva128@gmail.com
Abstract. The article analyzes the role of personal self-determination in modern social media. The relevance of this research is because it is self-determination as a value resource of the individual that influences the emergence of social media functions, that are unusual for classical media in modern society. The aim of the article is to analyze self-determination as a valuable resource of the personality of millennia’s (a generation of people born from 1980 to 2000) in social media. The structural-functional approach is used, in particular the theory of the network society of M. Castle’s and the concept of free will J.P. Sartre. The author also turns to empirical research: «The Millennial Consumer» (The Boston Consulting Group), the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion. A comparative analysis of the understanding of self-determination of the individual allowed us to clarify some of the features of this concept, formed by philosophers and sociologists. Personal self-determination can affect the structure of media reality, while the problem of modern man (instead of the previous problem of lack of information) is an excessive amount of information received. The author comes to the conclusion that social media, as a rule, when interpreting and broadcasting information, constructs social reality in such a way that it adds some elements to the information that were not originally there. This in turn leads to the formation of information in accordance with the requirements or expectations of certain interested groups, thus contributing to the transformation of Millennials ‘ personality and choice in social media. Thus, the virtual reality that we observe is mosaic. There is no value for the selection and structuring of social experience. A person finds himself in a situation where there are many different and contradictory values. Entering the virtual space assumes that a person has a stable system of values, otherwise the search for self-determination of the individual threatens to turn into a social deviation, both in virtual and real life. Separately, it should be noted that even when self-determination is conceptualized as a process of conscious, deliberate self-reflection, implicit associations of «I + group» acquired in early childhood can influence the choice of individuals, as well as the value of the group to which they belong. Apparently, a person’s desire to belong to a particular group is the explanation for why the production, exchange and posting of information in the digital space, distributed mainly through social networks, has become so popular today. The results of this study allow us to study the concept of self-determination as a value resource of the Millennials‘ personality. The results obtained can be supported by new statistical studies, for example, in predicting social behavior of an individual.
Keywords: person, self-determination, freedom, choice, social media, Internet, social networks, value.
Cite as: Yakovleva, L. S. (2020) [Self-determination as a value resource of Millennials’ personality in social media]. Intellekt. Innovatsii. Investitsii [Intellect. Innovations. Investments]. Vol. 3, pp. 105–110. DOI: 10.25198/2077-7175-2020-3-105.
