Communication as a means of youth's socialization

Mass communication as one of the types of communication largely determines the essence of modern sociality and the specifics of "information society" in the post-industrial era. Against the background of the increased amount of information, the intensification of the aggressive influence of information environment it is necessary to revise the approaches to the socialization of youth through the development of new competencies that will allow young people to communicate safely, ethically and mutually profitable. A toxic information environment generates dysfunctional, toxic communications, manifested in neglect of ethical standards of interaction, lack of flexibility in communication among young people, a decrease in the level of empathy, a desire to dominate and increased verbal aggression. In general, the plasticity of the psyche is destroyed, i.e. the ability to change, switch, compensate and replenish mental stamina, and the development of social intelligence is hindered. In this regard, the development of skills of the “elastic” communication among young people is becoming a task not only of individual social institutions, such as the family, education and media, but also of society as a whole. In the article, we have given examples of communicative technologies that form the backbone of elastic communication aimed at understanding the concepts of personal communicative security and communicative ethics by communication participants, development of communicative consciousness and mastering rhetorical communicative behavior both in real life and in virtual space.