In the article there has been performed the philosophical perception of using information technologies in the educational sphere. There has been  depicted the actuality of the problem for modern culture and society. The author has set the goal to identify positive and negative tendencies which appeared in the conditions of distance education. The methodological basis of the research is hermeneutics approach and general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction). The results of the research are the following points. There has been conducted the analysis of the problem in general discourse context. There has been demonstrated the debatability of the analysed problem by the specialists of different social studies. There have been outlined criteria to analyse the productivity of distance education which are adaptation, development and motivation. The author has shown the ambivalence in the manifestation of all the outlined positions. The ambiguity of the distance education productivity and personality forming problems is confirmed by the experience of the spring term 2020. There have been provided the data from the survey among students concerning distance education experience gained by Institute of International Relations and World History of Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod. The results point out the enforced character of substituting conventional education with online format and its applicability as an extra opportunity.