CONTEMPORARY INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN ECOLOGY: PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

Introduction. The information environment of the society as an integral part of a human habitat is a factor of his health and must comply with safety requirements. As a result of the development of communication technologies on the basis of computer devices and the Internet, there have been significant changes in the information environment of the society and its impact on people. The study of the negative impact of the contemporary information environment on a human cannot be limited to physical and psychophysiological factors. A semantic component of the information itself is significant. Information environment has a negative impact on the cognitive and emotional sphere of his psyche. The object of information influence is the personality. The objective of the paper is to study the formation of the contemporary information and communication environment of the society, the trends in its development, to define its main components and psychological peculiarities. Material and methods. The method of investigation is a comparative analysis of the views of various authors and their theoretical generalization. Results. Based on the analysis of publications, a current understanding of the information and communication environment of the society is presented. The formation of the information environment is connected with the development of technologies and tools for fixing, preserving and transferring social experience. Six stages of the development of the means of the information transferring and preservation in the society are selected. Global informatization of the environment leads to the changes in people’s lives and activities. The picture of the human world, his worldview, his way of life are exposed to the effects of the information traffic. The risk factor is the deterioration of the human adaptation to new conditions. The changes within the individual do not keep up with the rapid changes in technology. Conclusion. In the context of the new information and communication reality the importance of the problems of human ecology was shown to increase. The information environment of a society as an object of the study can be considered in the following aspects: a) as a human habitat; b) as a means of information human activities; c) as a system of communications, including interpersonal ones; d) as an information infrastructure that provides storage, access and use of information arrays.