Psychological and technological changes of human activity in the digital environment

Abstract

Introduction. Human activity is becoming increasingly emerged in the digital environment, which causes changes in all components of this activity — including goal setting, attitudes and results. In the digital environment, virtually any human activity becomes a type of information-related and intellectual activity. The article seeks to identify the psychological changes which information-related and intellectual activity undergoes in the digital environment, which is necessary for making modern specialists ready for effective work in today’s conditions.

Materials and Methods. The research uses the methods of psychology, informatics and pedagogy.

The methods of psychology make it possible to identify the changes of the psychological aspects of information-related and intellectual activity in the structure described by A. N. Leontiev (goals developed based on a set of motives — actions involving the use of information technology — the results).

The methods of informatics make it possible to determine how the basic operations of searching, processing, storing and transmitting information change during the stage-by-stage transformation of technological means and information processes in conditions of computerization, informatization and digitalization of activities.

The materials were collected in a number of ways. Part of the materials was obtained in several studies under the Russian government assignments, grants from the Russian Science Foundation and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and an IRNet grant from the EU which was implemented in six countries. Some of the materials were collected by the author while supervising doctoral research and the research carried out by master’s students of the program Digital Educational Environment and Digital Technologies. There is also a portion of materials which was collected while developing new courses in the field of digital education.

Results. The author substantiates the understanding of the ‘means of information and intellectual activity’ as the combination of hardware and software tools offered by information and communication technologies, explicit knowledge which is remotely accessible to the user, and artificial intelligence tools allowing interaction in natural language.

The study identified the psychological consequences of automating part of information-related, communicative and intellectual activities — in particular, increased information and communication needs, decreased labor intensity and increased speed of performing individual operations with information, the use of increased information volume and expanded communications to solve a problem.

Conclusions. The mobile use of modern ‘tools’ of information-related and intellectual activity leads to the ‘merging’ of the man and the machine with a prompt connection to the base of explicit knowledge of the Network. Such use expands the range of communicative interactions and strengthens natural intelligence by means of artificial intelligence.