Поколение Net: гуманизация или цифровизация

Abstract

Digital technologies in the 21st century are becoming an integral part of people’s lives. In the modern educational paradigm in Russia the processes of digitalization have been objectively conditioned by the transition on the part of society to a new technological order. Because of digital technologies in education, the Net generation (i.e., children born in the 2000s) will be prepared for a successful mastery of the electronic technological environment. The author considers two positions in assessing the capabilities of the digital generation. Proponents of the cognitive, technological potential for the new generation of young people believe that a special digital environment must be created in the educational environment for the Net generation for the successful development of their abilities and creative potentials. The other assessment is that the heuristic potential of the digital generation is overstated. The article presents the results of the analysis of creative works of students of one of the technical universities. These make it possible for us to conclude that along with the processes of digitalization in education, the humanitarian component must be strengthened. The abundance of information leads to a lack of the ability to comprehend and experience it, and, as a result, to a lack of creativity. Creative activity is based not only on knowledge, but on imagination, the aspiration towards fantasy. The level of creative abilities of the representatives of the digital generation does not exceed the level of the older generation, namely, the “digital immigrants.” The author comes to the conclusion about the necessary dialectics of humanitarian and digital education, which is able to develop a creative, educated personality.