Web 2.0. Próba chronologizacji i konceptualizacji zjawiska

The development of virtual space and the redefinition of the conceptual ranges of virtuality and reality require intensive descriptive processes of phenomena occurring in the virtual sphere. The term Web 2.0 does not refer to the improvement of the technical possibilities of the Internet, but to the changes that occurred in the use of the network by software producers and end users. The escape to the virtual world is also a novelty in the way of managing leisure time. The escape consists of spending hours on virtual beaches, in nightclubs and on yachts floating on the seas seen in the form of cochlorine pixels on the screens of computer monitors. The virtual world is no longer a substitute for the real world but rather it becomes a real form of rest. The social stratification of users is an example of the phenomenon of the Internet. Nowadays Internet users are divided into many groups (e.g. the users of instant messengers and social media), they have a sense of their own identity by naming themselves ‘Internet users’ or even ‘network citizens’. Virtual communication in the last decade changed from the supplementary to the dominant form in the transmission and flow of information between individuals and social groups. Another change took place at the level of media systems. The traditional division of the roles of the ‘sender’ and ‘recipient’ has been replaced by a hybrid – a Toffler’s ‘prosumer’, as both the recipient and the creator of the content. Successive online resources are generated by users who generate content with all disadvantages both in terms of relevance, quality and falsifiability of the content. The aim of this article is to present social theories describing the phenomenon of Web 2.0 and an attempt to chronologise this phenomenon.