The use of distance learning in the modern educational space of Zoom, Google Meet and other applications, as the main training format, has revealed a fairly large number of urgent challenges in terms of its effective use. The article outlines the difficulties of teaching online, which are noted by domestic and foreign researchers. It is noted that it is the subjective perception of distance learning by subjects of the educational process, in particular by applicants for higher education, that significantly affects the efficiency of knowledge assimilation. The attitude to distance learning of students of various professional fields has been investigated. The factors of positive and negative attitudes towards online learning are characterized. A statistically significant difference was revealed, and a comparative analysis and interpretation of differences between the indicators of satisfaction-dissatisfaction with distance education was carried out. It has been proven that the differences significantly depend on the professional orientation of the respondents. Taking into account the specifics of educational components will significantly affect the attitude of students to distance learning. In order to clarify the subjective attitude to online learning, to reduce the influence of the social environment, suggestion and attitudes, the respondents were offered, in addition to the authors’ questionnaire, the “Diary of emotions” questionnaire, which is used as a projective technique for studying the emotional state. It was revealed that the majority of applicants are dominated by a positive emotional state, but at the same time, the largest number of negative emotions from the list of negative emotions concerns precisely distance learning. Positive emotions are caused, as a rule, by situations of interpersonal communication with peers and this is an important factor that negatively affects the perception of learning, limiting direct, constant contacts with society. Among the prospects for further research, the importance of further studying the relationship of personal factors, in particular motivation and attitudes towards distance education, was noted.