YOUTH AUDIENCE’S PERSEPTION OF TOXIC CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The article deals with the problem of toxic content on social media. Theauthor attempts to provide theoretical understanding of the key modern changes of the social media space – excessive emotionality of a negative nature, provocative ambiguity and manipulation. The theoretical position is considered about shaping the aspirations of young people for personal psychological security. Based upon the results of the sociological investigations, the peculiarities of Voronezh youth’s perception of the aggressive and conflictual content of media products are analyzed. The methods, used in the study, consists in combining the mass survey and secondary data analysis. The survey data was processed using the program SPSS Statistics. Based on the received data it was determined that toxic user-generated content has become a common occurrence, although it is condemned by the youth.The results of the study are of practical importance for improving information policy and for the formation of humanistic values among young people.