Modern man as a subject of the new communicative reality

The paper deals with the philosophical analysis of the modern man’s status in the new communicative reality. The author proves that the progressive development of the infocommunication technologies and mass media contribute to the creation of a global information space as a fundamentally new environment for the human activity which produces a new type of communication, i.e. virtual communication. The study describes such characteristics of virtual communication as immateriality, anonymity, nonsynchronism, localization. It is concluded that the global Internet is a space of symbolic communication, in which the socialization and self-realization of the person are implemented. The research shows that virtual communication has the destructive effect on a person, his psyche, destroys the system of traditional values, identity, traditional behavior patterns, and turns him into a lonely interactive creature disappearing into the network and losing himself.