Information competences of young people within digitalization of society

Young people are the object and subject of social relations. The relevance of the research is the need to study the readiness of young people for rapid, unpredictable, and often manipulative impacts of society digitalization. It is also necessary to identify the level and features of information competences of the youth’s forefront - university students. They, by definition, due to their main activity - study, should share values of digital society and culture not just as ordinary consumers but as active and competent users. The scientific novelty of this work is the analysis of contradictory changes that occur under the influence of digitalization in all spheres of public life and a young person’s personality. According to the results of the sociological study, conducted in 2014-2019, there was the contradiction between levels of information competences that are necessary and available for successful adaptation to life in digital society among Astrakhan, Volgograd, and Moscow’s university students: most respondents possess the level of an ICT user, and only a small share of people has the competence of an ICT creator. Besides, the frequency of Internet logins for educational and professional activities decreases, and the number of Internet logins for leisure and pleasure increases. This trend may reflect dysfunctions of online education, which is an attribute of digital society, and destructive manifestations of Russian society digitalization. In addition, the current generation of young people is more like digital migrants who learn the language of the Internet as well as a migrant learn the language of a host country. Thus, they are unlikely to use the whole potential of ICT in their lives, their social capital is primarily formed of other sources.