Harry Potter and technopessimism: are «zoomers» ready for the technological progress?

Abstract

The article reveals the conditions for the science fiction and fantasy fiction to affect formation of technooptimistic and technopessimistic attitude of young readers. Primarily, the work assumes the way fiction heroes understand artefacts with reservations can be considered as the basis to reveal the attitude to engineering among those generations for whom these works were notional points. Technooptimism is defined as a worldview attitude within which nature and the humanbeing cause problems. The article shows that technopessimism identifies the human activity as the problem source. Harry Potter series proved to shape technopessimistic worldview and excuse technology inequality. Through the example of T. Pratchett books the article demonstrates that literature can formalize readers responsible attitude towards equipment if it shows not only the threat that pose technologies (the Promethan mentality), but also remedies to manage effects of machinery use, including those resulting from improper decisions (the Epimethian mentality).