Self-presentation of the personality of adolescents and young men in the social network

The article deals with the phenomenon of self-presentation of the personality of adolescents and young men in the social network “VKontakte", which they use to meet their current needs, including the desire to navigate the social world, search for and receive the necessary information, communication, and the opportunity to express their individuality. The study was designed to determine the determinants of self-presentation of the personality of adolescents and young men in network communication in terms of differences in the ways of their self-representation, depending on the level of self-esteem, age, and gender. It is established that self-presentation in social networks reflects age-related psychological neoplasms. Speaking about adolescents, it is a sense of adulthood, conformism, the desire for social approval, dysmorphophobia syndrome. As for young men, it isn the formation of self-concept, personal and professional self-determination, the desire for self-actualization. It was revealed that the studied age groups of users have different approaches to filling out pages in the social network “VKontakte". Self-descriptions of teenagers contain more distortions of real biographical data than self-presentations of young men. It is determined that the tactics of presenting oneself in social networks change depending on the level of user’s self-esteem. The trend of blurring gender differences when choosing a method of self-presentation in online profiles is confirmed.