The relationship between students' social identity and their self-esteem in the context of socialization

Introduction. The socialization of student youth today is taking place under the powerful influence of digitalization, which has both positive and negative sides. The university's task is to minimize the spontaneous impact of online content on students through purposefully created conditions and measures that affect the formation of adequate self-esteem in the process of socialization. The aim of the study is to identify the priority type of identity of students and its impact on their self–esteem, to develop proposals for strengthening non-virtual types of identity - university, professional, regional, etc. Materials and methods. The study was conducted in 2020 and 2024. In 2020, 53 students participated in the study, and in 2024 – 50 students of the Department of Management at the Faculty of Business of Novosibirsk State Technical University (Russian Federation). The peculiarities of students' self-esteem were analyzed through the prism of identity, that is, taking into account the fact that an individual manifests self-perception by associating himself with certain social groups. A survey was conducted through questionnaires and testing using the «twenty-statement test» by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland. The questionnaire used closed alternative questions. The data was processed and visualized using the method of bar charts and pie charts. KEYWORDS The results of the study. The research revealed the influence of the prevailing online identity of students on the formation of their overestimated self–esteem as representatives of the social network and underestimated self-esteem as representatives of the student community in real life. Feeling themselves in the context of online identity, students tend to overestimate their real capabilities, while in the context of the student community, self-esteem decreases as the time spent online by students increases. Among the representatives of the group who are online from 3 to 5 hours a day, the average percentage of students' self–assessment as representatives of the online community is 82 positive and 18 negative; as representatives of the student community – 31 positive and 69 negative (2020). In 2024, the online community – 79 positive and 21 negative; the student community – 33 positive and 67 negative. Conclusions. The research initiates the development of a comprehensive socializing strategy implemented through the university's digital ecosystem, capable of making the processes of interpersonal communication in its internal and external circuits relatively manageable. The introduction of the communication platform into the educational processes at the university allows students to get out of their individual online worlds and form a student identity, significantly expanding the range of their contacts and creating the need for cooperation