The role and place of virtual downshifting in modern youth training practices

This article is devoted to the study of the emerging modern trend in the field of virtual communication practices, namely, virtual downshifting. Full immersion of today’s youth and students in the “world of gadgets” causes some of them to feel “fatigue” from life in a parallel, virtual world. The consequences of this are an attempt to abandon the Internet communications either completely or partially and the return of a person to the real world. The phenomenon of virtual downshifting is built into the general cultural trend to “slow down” the life in various areas of human existence. Since the mid-1980s, such “slow movements” as “slow food”, “slow science”, “slow reading”, “slow media” have begun to appear. The practice itself, the quality of spending time in a virtual environment is changing. Downshifting should not be related to the temporary nature of the refusal. A person can spend on the network as much time as before, but the target settings are shifted toward learning activities.