Stage approach to the research of the digital economy

The article examines the features of the digital economy as a special stage of social development. The stage-by-stage approach used to conduct the study made it possible to determine how the content of the general features of the functioning of society is modified in the era of the mass transition of the countries of the world to the digital economy. It justifies the separation of the digital economy into a separate stage of social development, which is characterized by both the individual diversity of socio-economic phenomena and processes, and the correspondence of the general typification of the levels of social progress for certain periods of time.