This article explores the impact of the new communications technologies on the generation born in the 1980s, the first to grow up under the dominance of the computer. It considers some of the parameters for discussing the close of one era and the beginning of another and draws on the writings of major civilizationist historians and futurologists, including Jacques Ellul, Samuel Huntington, and Romano Guardini.

The paper is devoted to controversies in computer games studies connected with game classification and characteristics. Controversies on walking simulators are discussed in depth; also historical roots of these games and their ergodicity.