The Impact of the Digital Environment on Thinking and Intellectual Capacity of Students

Teachers, psychologists and hygienists note that modern students are characterized by the so-called mosaic thinking caused by the dominance of the virtual environment in human life. It is characterized by illogicalness, quick switching between pieces of information and the lack of a holistic picture of the worldview. At the same time, there is a dominance of selective and visual attention due to the excessive online presence of children and adolescents. The objective of this study was to study the development of mosaic thinking in the younger generation by the example of middle and high school students of general educational organizations in Nizhny Novgorod. The study of the impact of digitalization on the cognitive processes of children and adolescents is more relevant than ever. However, such scientific research is only eclectic and fragmented. Only individual issues of this problem have been studied, but there are very few attempts to address the issue systematically. Under the circumstances, it is necessary to adapt the educational process to a new type of perception and way of thinking of today’s students. The article attempts to analyze the causes of mosaic thinking, to show the difference between mosaic thinking and conceptual thinking, to introduce some scientific research on this topic made by the Department of Hygiene of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education “Privolzhsky Research Medical University” of the Ministry of Health of Russia.

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