Social Risks of Digitalization of Education

The article discusses the social consequences of digitalization in education, focuses on the possible risks of this process. Defining the digitalization of education as an objective consequence of the technical process, the authors draw attention to such negative consequences as the loss of basic cognitive competencies, a decrease in the overall level of training of both students in the system of school and vocational education. The consequence of digitalization is atomization both in the interpersonal interaction of students and in their communication with teachers. Digitalization is one of the mechanisms for the reproduction of social inequality in society, because is aimed at the standardization of thinking, the reproduction of “ready-made knowledge”, and not at the development of creative thinking. Formally equal diplomas do not eliminate differences in the level of training and competencies of specialists from elite and non-elite educational institutions. In the latter, students act as objects, and not as equal subjects of the educational process, and one of the reasons for this is the use of technologies without the human factor to control students’ knowledge, distance learning, minimizing contacts between teachers and students. Understanding the digitalization of education as an objective and contradictory process, the authors of the article actualize the task of preventing a number of its negative consequences.