Abstract
The contemporary world has brought many “innovations” to the sphere of human communication. One of such “innovations” is the phenomenon of Internet communication. Communication has always been one of the most important components of any type of human interactions and this is the reason it is very hard to underestimate its significance for any manifestations of the life of any personality. It is owing to communication and socializations each individual becomes a personality (Reid,1996). This is primarily due to the fact that each “homo sapiens” becomes a personality only under the conditions of interaction with the society and exchange of experience which becomes possible only under the condition of the presence of “speech”. As the world around changes, the peculiarity of the communication changes too. The contemporary world has given life to what is called Internet communication.
People become busier and busier from day to day and Internet very often becomes the main world where people can talk to each other and communicate with each other, express their feelings and be themselves. On the other hand it provides the individual with the opportunity to try on different “roles” and chose which one is more appropriate to the situation and the individual’s inner condition. One large area of Internet communication is the communication between genders. The relations between men and women have always been a very important issue and Internet-communication reveals more important details concerning the question. This is especially significant in terms of the understanding that interpersonal communication is one of the leading types of human activity. Another aspect is that the most sensitive period for inter-gender communication is youth or adolescence. The peculiarities of formation of interpersonal relations between young men and women within the process of communication within the World Wide Web are on the most important contemporary issues of the present century.

The topicality of such research is conditioned by the necessity of the psychological study of the aspects of communication among young men and women within the virtual space or by other peculiarities of their virtual communication with the individuals of the opposite gender in the World Wide Web (Donath, 1997). As a consequence of such communication strong emotional connections as formed between the individuals involved in the virtual communication. The main aspects of such specific interest is the need to widen the theory and the practice of interpersonal communications between the individuals of opposite genders. This implies the analysis of the specific character of the communication of each individual who gets involved into the emotional connection with a person of an opposite sex. In the movement of this question the criterions of “choosing” the virtual partner become critically important (Townsend,1990). A detailed analysis brings to the necessity to identify the factors which “push” young men and women to build a strong emotional connection with a person of an opposite sex within the frames of Internet communication. The social character of the World Wide Web does not leave any doubts concerning the level of its significance for modern psychology. Insufficient study of this problem has defined the direction of this psychological experiment.
For the present moment the majority of the individuals belonging to the age group of youth (17-25) spend a significant amount of time in the Internet. Such “virtual communication” became a surrogate of real communication. It became an alternative for the ordinary face-to-face communication. The main problem if this psychological research is the creation of the list of peculiarities and characteristics according to which the “virtual partner” is chosen, though any visual and physical interaction is absent. This question, as it has been mentioned before has a social character due to the fact that it reflects the communicational tendencies of the contemporary society in the context of the development and popularization of virtual communications. The proposed psychological problem is a new paradigm of the present century and its parameters are not accurately studied. Nevertheless, even now it can be said that virtual communication has become the concurrent of the real life communication. The virtual world starts dominating over the real world. This problem has been deeply studied by Elizabeth Reid and other psychologists. According to the psychological research, virtual communication has become an integral part of the modern life of each young man and woman and has also become the source of interpersonal relationships between individuals of opposite sexes. In order to investigate this phenomenon a study has been conducted – fifteen men and fifteen women have been involved in the on-line testing. This can be related more to the non-experimental method and obviously provide certain co relational data. The correlation can be taken from the psychological peculiarities of the individuals, who actually search for strong emotional connections within the WWW and the peculiarities of such relations. In such case the psychological of the individuals involved in virtual emotional communication become an important variable. The hypothesis is that young men and women involved in interpersonal virtual communication with a representative of an opposite gender chose their partner according to the motivational aspect of commutation (exchange of goals, interests, motives and needs). This type of communication determines the strength and the intensity of the emotional connections formed between two people of opposite genders.
The given research is based on the philosophical principle of determinism. Determinism – is a general teaching which deals with the notion that it proves the presence of universal laws of connections between things and phenomenon of the world. The most interesting type of connection in terms of this psychological research is the reason and conditions of formation of interpersonal emotional relations between young men and women by means of WWW.
Virtual communication – is a conditioned communication which is based on the need to have a connection with a person without any direct visual and physical contact with him or her. In order to get a deeper understanding of the phenomena of virtual communication it is necessary to bring the example of the structuring of the virtual space. It can occur in two different ways: the first one deals with the transfer of the social data into the virtual world (sex, age, etc.); or through the virtual reconstruction of the individual’s social identity through the realization of the value of the communication (Kanin, 1970).
With the goal of revealing the characteristics (criterion of choice) which are most appealing for young men and women in their virtual partners 15 males and 15 females were tested with a questionnaire. The choice was made within such characteristics as: honesty, equity, reliability, patience, good communicational skills, trust, faith in the individual’s possibilities, tendency to doubt, confidence, frankness, thoughtfulness, responsiveness, ability to accept the fact that the individual is wrong, strive to make other people happy, ability to sympathize with other people, patience to shortcomings, strive to help everybody, openness, delicacy and tractability.
Almost all out of the listed criterion are positive. This is determined by the necessity to identify the quality of the characteristics expected in a good virtual partner and it not aimed at the determination of the general unfavorable traits. The next results were obtained: the most important characteristic of an “emotionally valuable” virtual partner is reliability (83%).This characteristic is the most favorable for the formation of the interpersonal emotional connection with the partner of an opposite gender. Full analysis offers the next variables and data concerning their importance:
76% – trust
73% – frankness,
67% – strive to make other people happy, ability to sympathize with other people, patience to the shortcoming, responsiveness
63% – patience
60% – delicacy
57% ability to accept the fact that the individual is wrong
53% – openness and faith in the individual’s possibilities
43% – tractability
40% – thoughtfulness,
37% – honesty and confidence
33% – equity
23% – tendency to doubt, strive to help other people.
From the identified characteristics such qualities as tractability, thoughtfulness, honesty and confidence,equity, tendency to doubt and strive to help other people make the process of virtual communication more complicated or do not have any value for the individuals engaging internet communication with people belonging to the opposite sex. On the other hand such characteristics as reliability, trust frankness, to make other people happy, ability to sympathize with other people, patience to the shortcoming, responsiveness, patience, delicacy, ability to accept the fact that the individual is wrong, openness and faith in the individual’s possibilities are actually the dominants in the process of formation of the interpersonal emotional relations between “virtual partners”. It is important to notice the fact that such characteristics as honesty is among one of the most not important and not valuable characteristics along with confidence. The results speak for themselves as they state that the tested young men and women consider the ability of the partner to listen to them and to support them emotionally to be one of the most important traits in a “virtual partner”. It goes without saying that there is a definite difference between the male and the female choices (Morman,1988). The male results state that the top three characteristic of the ideal virtual partner are:
1. reliability
2. trust, frankness, the strive to the others happy
3. communicational skills, patience to shortcomings.
The results of the female investigational group make up the next top three qualities:
1. reliability, responsiveness
2. trust
3. patience, frankness and ability to sympathize with other people.
Virtual communication from year to year becomes a more and more integral part of the life of each individual belonging to the age of youth. Social consequences of this phenomenon are very important and this importance will grow from year to year. The given psychological analysis reveals the criteria of choice of the virtual partner and the formation of strong emotional contact with him.
Virtual communication among people of the adolescent age dictates certain criteria of choice of the partner. It is virtual communication that can be called the premise of the appearance of the feeling of “emotional proximity” of the virtual partners of opposite sexes. In other words, virtual communication casts away the evaluation of physical attractiveness of the partner to the “backstage” and reveals the perfect spot for the spiritual world of the partner. Contemporary culture has made an immense accent on physical attractiveness. As a consequence the “cult of body” has been formed. Therefore, virtual communication provides the individual with the possibility to emotionally evaluate the person, to be more open, frank, destroys the physical factor. The strive of the individuals of the adolescent age to create emotional connection with opposite sex partners may be interpreted as a result of the insufficient amount of emotional “colors” in real life.

References:

1. Donath J. Identity and deception in the virtual communinity.
http://judith.www.media.mit.edu/Judith/Identity.html. 1997.
2. Reid E., Deaux K. Relationship between social and personal identities: segregation or integration // J. Of Personality and Social Psychology. 1996. V. 71. P. 1084-1091.
3. Morman. Mark. T. And Kory Floyd. 1988. «Overt Expression of Affection in Male-male Interaction». Sex Roles: Journal of Research. 38 (9 10). 871.
4. Townsend, John M. And Gary D. Levy. 1990. «Effects of Potential Partners» Physical Attractiveness and Socioeconomic Status on Sexuality and Partner Selection”. Archivees of Sexual Behaviour, 19(2):149-164.
5. Kanin. E.J., K.D. Davidson and S.R. Scheck. 1970. «A Research Note on Male-female Differentials on the Experience of Heterosexual Love». The Journal of Sex Research, 6:64-72.

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