Immersing in the virtual world of the Internet, information and communication technologies are changing the human being. In spite of the apparent similarity of on-line and off-line, social laws of their existence are different. According to the analysis of games, based on the violation of the accepted laws of the world off-line, their censoring, as well as the cheating, features of formation and violations of social norms in virtual worlds were formulated. Although the creators of the games have priority in (...) the standardization of the virtual world, society as well as players can have impact on it to reduce the realism. The violation of the prescribed rules by a player is regarded as cheating. And it is subjected to sanctions, but the attitude toward it is ambiguous, sometimes positive. Some rules are formed as a result of the interaction between players. (shrink)

The study of a person existence in Internet space is certainly an actual task, since the Internet is not only a source of innovation, but also the cause of society's transformations and the social and cultural problems that arise in connection with this. Computer network is global. It is used by people of different professions, age, level and nature of education, living around the world and belonging to different cultures. It complicates the problem of developing common standards of behavior, a (...) system of norms and rules that could be widely accepted by all users. On the other hand, the Internet space can be viewed as a new form of existence where physical laws do not work, and in connection with this, social ones are often questioned. This paper focuses on how social norms regulate relations in Internet space. The authors represents the typology of deviant behavior in the network. The empirical basis of the research includes the sociological survey of students of the senior courses in the Institute of Computer Science and Technology of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Sociological survey allows to identify students’ understanding of Internet space. The selection of students is conditioned by the fact that IT professionals are considered simultaneously as ordinary users of the network and as future professionals in this field. (shrink)

This essay for the inaugural issue of Technology and Language discusses the problem of finding an optimal form of human-machine communication. In the ongoing search for an alien mind, humanity seems to find it not in the infinities of space, but in its own environment. Changes in the language of human-machine interaction made it understandable not only to trained specialists but to every household. In the course of time, home appliances and devices have developed their language abilities even more and (...) reached a very advanced level – by way of status indicators, displays, emergency sound and color signals. The transition to computer-assisted communication brought about a great diversity of human expression forms translated into the discrete digital language of technologies. According to some prognoses, the first human-robot marriage might be registered in the future, however, such a union is not the only possible human-machine alliance. (shrink)