Keyword: «digital natives»

The article is devoted to the issues of the influence of information and communication technology and digital electronic devices on the health and biosocial functions of the Digital Natives generation. The authors analyzed the main indicators of students' health at various levels of education. Particular attention was paid to the dynamics of vision condition changes among young people of the Southern Federal District for the period 2016–2018. The study made it possible to draw conclusions about trends in the health status of young people living in the Southern Federal District.

Currently, the predictable, calm world has been replaced by a dynamic and complex VUCA world, in which it is important for the digital generation of young people to use soft skills. Many of these skills are based on the appropriate level of development of certain types of thinking and its qualities. The purpose of our research was to study different types of thinking among high school students, which could contribute to their personal self-knowledge, timely correction of the characteristics, developed at an insufficient level, and more conscious further professional self-determination. The sample was made up of regular groups of high school students. The work used a set of complementary methods: organizational, theoretical, empirical, data processing methods, methods of research results presentation. To study the types of thinking at the ascertaining and control stages of the study, the following diagnostic tools were used that were consistent with the indicators of validity, reliability, standardization, and representativeness of test norms: the questionnaire «Determination of thinking types and the level of creativity» (Bruner), the test «Logical patterns» (Lippman), the method «comparison of concepts» (Vygotsky, et al.), the method «Exclusion of excess» (Rubinstein), the test for the assessment of logical thinking, the test «Meaning of words». In the course of the formative experiment, a specially worked out program was used, which included a set of lessons, divided into several blocks. Its implementation was accompanied by the introduction of a number of experimental conditions. The results obtained made it possible to identify a tendency for the prevailing development of thinking in images among modern high school students (which is characteristic of clip thinking) and a fall in the indicators of logical thinking, which is reflected in the uncritical perception of information, illogicality of the choices being made, the lack of desire to find the most rational method of solving the problem and the ability to generalize large databases, etc. With purposeful systematic work on the development of different types of thinking of high school students, the most mobile in terms of change are symbolic and creative types of thinking. Other types can be developed as well with appropriate work, but at a slower pace.