Dimensionless expansion of distance learning: who benefits from haste?

Accelerated use of distance education at all levels of the system, initiated by anti-epidemic measures in 2020, has caused a contradictory response in the academic environment. Some researcherspredict the institutionalization of the higher education transformation to the level of mass online universities, and promote the economic benefits of reducing teachers’ contact work. Others try to find out the limits of exclusion from the functionality of the “face-to-face” communication system between teachers and students. The discussions that are not always supported by the current sociological works are amplified, so they need to be consistently realized. The purpose of the article is to describe the negative effects caused by the expansion of online educational interaction and to offer the options for minimizing negative externalities. The method of literature review from the Scopus, Web of Science, RSCI and other databases was chosen as the leading one out of the materials and methods. To apply the methodology of analysis and synthesis, we used a comparative content analysis of publications in Russian and foreign periodicals specializing in the issues of academic rights and freedoms. Discussing the topic under consideration, the author continues studying various manifestations of conflicts of interest in education. The analysis result allowed making a number of assumptions, the main one being the thesis that the haste in scaling up the experience of education digitalization gained during the 2020 pandemic will cause irreparable socio-cultural trauma to the social institution. In the future, the author will expand the research base, justifying an individual approach to assessing the essence of moral economics and its immoral manifestations in the academic environment.