The conditions and consequences of digitalization of modern society: socioeconomic analysis

The digitalization is seen as an irreversible destiny for the humankind, and distinguished scientists expect the future to be tightly connected and saturated with digital technologies (for instance, Lyotard 1998, Bell 1999, Lyon 2013 etc.). However, not much is known about critical shifts, which have occurred in social, cultural and economic domains, and the future perspectives of digitalization seem obscure. The current article is aimed at describing the phenomenon of «digitalization» from socioeconomic perspective and educing the main features of the digitalized society. The article includes two parts. Firstly, the historico-philosophical theory of French professor Pier Levy is considered in detail. P. Levy (1997, 1998) has set forward the theory of four anthropological spaces, which includes the «earth», «territory», «commerce» spaces and the modern «knowledge space». The knowledge space we are living in is characterized by the mass usage of technological apps, the inclusion of humans in innovation networks, the rise in collective intelligence, the replacement of material relationship to the world by more epistemological one, the refusal of geographical references, and by the constant redefinitions of the human identity via adjusting to the changing and fragile environment, which is becoming more and more digitalized. The second part of the article is devoted to the analysis of the impact of digitalization on the economic sphere. The latest book written by the economist Prof. Klaus Schwab «The Fourth Industrial Revolution» (2017) serves as a guide to the new digital economy. Klaus Schwab highlights such characteristics of modern society, which in many respects goes in parallel with Levy's theory, as interconnectedness, knowledge access, growing capabilities to storage and receipt information, constant transformation of the economic sector, global extension of the changes, the emergence of global society, and the collective future for all the people. Besides, Prof. Schwab highlights that in case of three industrial revolutions, which preceded the Fourth one (the 1^st revolution of 1760th-1840^th, the 2^nd revolution of the late 19^th-early 20^th century, and the 3^rd revolution of the 1960 -1990th), the main consequence of them was the growing mechanization of the work process but not the absolute automatization of it. That means that the Forth industrial revolution creates the base for the replacement of human employees by the digital apps in the sphere of physical work and even in some areas of knowledge economy, which creates risks for the future labor market and the future economy on the whole.

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