The article shows the main risks of digitalization, including spontaneous digitalization of children’s education, on the one hand, and possibilities of positive, developmental use of ‘digital’. It reveals conditions under which digitization can become a benefit, and a factor that destroys personality, culture and education. It is shown that digitalization can be a positive phenomenon if children are educated in the attitude towards the ‘number’ as a tool that helps in organizing cognitive activities, behaviour and self-understanding. The authors formulate the idea of the digital environment as a new environment for human existence. The article marks out requirements for the organization of the developing digital environment, shows the possibility of performance of adult mediating functions in the conditions of digitalization and the historical crisis of childhood. It shows that L.S. Vygotsky’s idea of authentic learning and education through the organization of the environment is necessary and possible to apply to the digital environment. Empirical data are presented.
Bolshunova et al. (Wed,) studied this question.