The article deals with the results of a review of theoretical, empirical and experimental studies on emotional intelligence of Russian and foreign authors published in the scientific literature over the past decades. The relevance of the study on emotional intelligence is due to the scarcity of scientific ideas about the manifestation, interpretation and control of emotions by a person in the new conditions of digital communication, which has spread everywhere, including the sphere of education. The result of the analysis was a tag cloud constructed on the basis of semantic units contained in the definitions of the term given by different authors, as well as a description of the deficit found in the approaches of researchers regarding the definition of the "emotional intelligence" concept. We described approaches to this phenomenon structure with the subsequent operationalization of emotional intelligence as an object of psychological diagnostic measurement. The article contains lists of the most common methodological foundations for the diagnosis of emotional intelligence, including its understanding as a cognitive construct, a personal construct, a construct with the inclusion of cognitive, personal and motivational elements, as well as the identification of the neurobiological foundations, and the fact that there is no consensus of experts on this issue. Special attention in the survey research is paid to the role of emotional intelligence in a personal success in performing certain activities, with a more detailed analysis of the works devoted to the study of this construct in the educational environment. The article describes the results of studies conducted in Australia, Israel, Spain and Russia, confirming the significant contribution of emotional intelligence to the professional activities of teachers, as well as the significance of this construct in the academic performance of students and their achievement of significant results in extracurricular activities (Australia, Belgium, Spain, Pakistan, Russia, USA, and Turkey). At the end of the survey research we defined the raise of scientific interest in the study of emotional intelligence in the subjects of the educational environment due to the widespread introduction of digital technologies in the pedagogical process, which significantly transform the mechanisms of demonstration, recognition and management of emotions. These mechanisms include objective difficulties encountered by teachers and students in recognizing and demonstrating emotions in a situation of remote interaction; the unilateral choice by each subject of educational communication of the degree of completeness of the presentation of information about themselves and their own emotional state, as well as the ability to unilaterally change the conditions of communication; the presence of a cognitive dominant in the interpretation of the emotional state of the interlocutor due to the actualization of the reflection and identification mechanisms in the presence of symbolic accompaniment (words, symbols, emoticons, etc.) while demonstrating emotions.