Social Networks' Devastating Effect on the Interrelation Between Language and Thinking in the Context of Media Ecology

This article focuses on the modern hot media's (including social networks') influence on the interrelation between language and thinking. The aim of this article is to analyze the mechanism of social network's devastating impact on thinking by means of influence on language. This modality overview is given based on foreign and Russian publications. Using the theory built by H.M. McLuhan, the author places emphasis on the communication means rather than on their content. She applies the general methods of analysis and synthesis as well as the analog model study technique. Today, we live in an era of media technologies. A new round of their development has come. Media technologies have a strong impact on people. Therefore, there is a relevant research problem. It is quite important to understand their influence on thinking. The trend towards a transition from critical thinking to clip one has been established at the current stage of research. However, the causes and mechanisms of this transformation are still not determined. The author uses a linguistic-philosophical approach to the problem. Thinking in its indisputable interrelation with language is under review in this case. The principal points of McLuhan's theory on hot media are compared to the regular features of modern media's (including social networks') performance. The author also emphasizes that the hot media technology developers learned to inhibit fragmentation mechanism - the so-called psychic rigor mortis whereas this particular mechanism enables the nervous system to resist the hot media's destructive influence. The article treats linguistic-philosophical problems at the micro- and meso-scales of media ecology, describes the destructive effect on language and its consequences for critical thinking. The author emphasizes the depotenti-ation of consciousness and the damage to traditional values. The work has been carried out at the intersection of two fields - linguistic philosophy and media ecology. Following the approach, the author comes to a conclusion that it is necessary to create a new cross-disciplinary field of research called media-ecological linguistic philosophy. Such a solution will promote a more thorough study of the problems identified within this investigation and a search of effective ways to protect language in the conditions of media environment.

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