New Dimension of Social Development: Activities and Creativity in the Internet Communications

New Dimension of Social Development:
Activities and Creativity in the Internet Communications


Asochakov Yu.V.

Cand. Sci. (Philos.), Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. yasochakov@yandex.ru

Bogomiagkova E.S.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof. of the Chair of Theory and History of Sociology, St.- Petersburg State University, St.-Petersburg, Russia e.bogomyagkova@spbu.ru

Ivanov D.V.

Dr. Sci. (Sociol.), Prof., St. Petersburg state university, St. Petersburg, Russia dvi2001@rambler.ru

ID of the Article:


This work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 18-18-00132. The authors are grateful also to the Research Park of St. Petersburg State University ‘Center for Sociological and Internet Research’ for the empirical data collected (project No. 106-16435).


For citation:

Asochakov Yu.V., Bogomiagkova E.S., Ivanov D.V. New Dimension of Social Development: Activities and Creativity in the Internet Communications. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2021. No 1. P. 75-86




Abstract

The article presents a study of involvement in the internet communication, activities and creativity on social networking platforms. Comparative analysis of empirical data collected in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sverdlovsk region focuses on digital communications intensity considered an indicator of postindustrial social structures – networks and flows development. The study demonstrates sustainability and wide scope of the internet and social networking platforms usage. However the development level of such social life patterns varies in different segments of society. Social structures revealed with help of such indicators as involvement, activity and creativity in digital communications are more developed in large cities and megacities. Young people and the middle strata persons lead as groups contributing to development of network and flow structures. Communicating on social networking platforms and generating intense flows of content, members of these social groups accumulate their virtual capital. Social differentiation based on unequal distribution of virtual capital is a new form of inequality. In relation to ‘digital divide’ of the 1990s as disparities among users and nonusers this new form is a secondary digital divide for disparities among users creating digital content and users just consuming it.


Keywords
social networks; Internet; activity; creativity; digital divide; social development; fullness of life

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Content No 1, 2021