Communication characteristics of students with different self-presentation strategies on social media

Abstract

The internet is essential to modern life, with social media forming its integral part. When people register on social media, they create their own groups and communities to communicate and share information with other people. Virtual environment, just like real life, can pose the problem of selfpresentation to anyone. Younger generations are particularly drawn to online communities as they can self-actualize online, demonstrating their intellectual or creative skills and preferences in a variety of life domains. This article presents the results of a comparative analysis of the communicative characteristics of students with different self-presentation strategies on social media. The study involved 160 students from universities in Rostov-on-Don, with 80 active users and 80 individuals with low online activity. It employed the method of general communicative tolerance assessment (V. V. Boyko), the method of diagnosing ‘obstacles’ to establishing emotional connections (V. V. Boyko), and the method of diagnosing communicative attitudes (V. V. Boyko). Statistical processing was performed using the SPSS 27.0 package. The results showed that active social media users possess more developed emotional self-regulation, demonstrate a pronounced tolerance for discomfort caused by interlocutors, and are also tolerant of withdrawn and uncommunicative conversation partners. We proved that more active social media users are less prone to grumbling and transferring their previous negative interpersonal communication experience to new relationships.