Uncertainty as a Communication Element on Social Networks: the Multiplicity of Interpretations of Nonverbal Gestures

At present the active use of social networks such as Facebook, VKontakte, Twitter and Instagram gives people extra medium of social relations. The purpose of this work to describe a variety of situations in which misunderstandings may arise in communication between active users in Social Networks. For this reason was chosen qualitative methodology, viz. depth interview. According to the project 12 interviews with active users of Social Networks were conducted. The theoretical part of the study is supposed to be based on the interpretive theory of action. Despite the rapid penetration of Internet communications in our life, there is a lack of empirical researches in this area. The problem of uncertainty as a communication element in social networks is not directly considered before this project comes out. Results show that the situation of uncertainty in the Internet communication is probably associated with functional features of social networks. Such simple mechanism of non-verbal communication as a «like» shows how differently some people in Social Networks may understand the actions of others. The most important conclusions could be summed up in the idea that the lack of understanding between people at the network communication can be caused by misreading the meaning invested in the other person's action. In addition, the findings will be interesting not only as a support for further research, but also for ordinary users of social networks, network and UED (user-experience design) developers.