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The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact upon all spheres of our life -- social, economic, cultural, political, academic, and others. A shift to a new digital reality intensified already existing digital gaps and inequalities across societies and social groups within the countries and triggered a discussion about new forms of the digital divides in the pandemic and post-pandemic world. One of the areas that have been seriously affected by a shift to digital life is education. By looking at various educational platforms and tools used by Russian universities since lockdown in spring 2020, both for educational purposes and entrance admission routine, we discuss the challenges and new conflicts digital reality has brought to universities. At the same time, this study focuses on the advantages of this new reality for learning and educational processes. We argue that in the post-pandemic world new digital divides and new demands to university staff members and students have appeared, illustrating this argument with examples from Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that new kinds of risk are emerging with the COVID-19 virus, and that these risks are unequally distributed. As we expose to view, digital inequalities and social inequalities are rendering certain subgroups significantly more vulnerable to exposure to COVID-19. Vulnerable populations bearing disproportionate risks include the social isolated, older adults, penal system subjects, digitally disadvantaged students, gig workers, and last-mile workers. Therefore, we map out the intersection between COVID-19 risk factors and digital inequalities on each of these populations in order to examine how the digitally resourced have additional tools to mitigate some of the risks associated with the pandemic. We shed light on how the ongoing pandemic is deepening key axes of social differentiation, which were previously occluded from view. These newly manifested forms of social differentiation can be conceived along several related dimensions. At their most general and abstract, these risks have to do with the capacity individuals have to control the risk of pathogen exposure. In order to fully manage exposure risk, individuals must control their physical environment to the greatest extent possible in order to prevent contact with potentially compromised physical spaces. In addition, they must control their social interactional environment to the greatest extent possible in order to minimize their contacts with potentially infected individuals. All else equal, those individuals who exercise more control over their exposure risk -- on the basis of their control over their physical and social interactional environments -- stand a better chance of staying healthy than those individuals who cannot manage exposure risk. Individuals therefore vary in terms of what we call their COVID-19 exposure risk profile (CERPs). CERPs hinge on preexisting forms of social differentiation such as socioeconomic status, as individuals with more economic resources at their disposal can better insulate themselves from exposure risk. Alongside socioeconomic status, one of the key forms of social differentiation connected with CERPs is digital (dis)advantage. Ceteris paribus, individuals who can more effectively digitize key parts of their lives enjoy better CERPs than individuals who cannot digitize these life realms. Therefore we believe that digital inequalities are directly and increasingly related to both life-or-death exposure to COVID-19, as well as excess deaths attributable to the larger conditions generated by the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]