The impact of social media on high school students' speech communication

<p><strong>Context and relevance. </strong>The relevance of this article is explained by the fact that the Internet displays every day, and sometimes even every hour, the rich life of society with its unique national, religious and age characteristics of participants, which, of course, affects the formation of linguistic consciousness, the linguistic picture of the world and the linguistic identity itself. The main users of social networks and the Internet are teenagers. <strong>Objective.</strong> To identify the peculiarities of the formation of slang used in social networks by teenagers and its impact on speech culture and on the Russian language as a whole. <strong>Hypothesis.</strong> The speech culture of high school students is formed mainly through social networks. <strong>Methods and materials.</strong> 376 respondents participated in the study. The study was conducted using a questionnaire and the methodology of M. Schneider. <strong>Results.</strong> The conducted survey of high school students allowed the authors to identify the positive and negative sides of the use of Internet slang in the communication process by teenagers. In the article, the authors point out the importance of speech culture in the formation of communication skills in high school students. <strong>Conclusions.</strong> Based on the obtained interim results of an empirical study, the authors concluded that social networks can be used as a means of developing communication skills, competent correct speech and revealing the potential communicative capabilities of high school students.</p>