The Internet Is Not a Tool: Reappraising the Model for Internet-Addiction Disorder Based on the Constraints and Opportunities of the Digital Environment

Abstract

The Internet was born in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century; it was initially used for military purposes but has since become a powerful instrument for nonmilitary use, including the exchange of information all over the world, thanks to the introduction of tools such as the web browser. From the start, the World Wide Web assumed several functions (e.g., recreation, education, and business) but preserved a private dimension. To connect, people needed access to an Internet-connected computer, which represented a separation from real life, or a virtual reality. A video-terminal device helped these people to immerse themselves in salient but virtual images and sounds; this immersion could induce symptoms such as dissociation (Schimmenti and Caretti, 2010). In the 1990s, scientists developed a conceptualization of the misuse of the Internet and of Internet-addiction disorder (IAD) that was coherent with their conception of the Internet as virtual reality. The strongest criterion for distinguishing healthy Internet use from misuse was connection time; this criterion was supported by several empirical studies regarding its relationship with psychopathological symptoms (Young, 1998; Quayle and Taylor, 2003; Musetti et al., 2016, 2017). However, over the last two decades, Internet use has given rise to global sociocultural changes and has had important implications for the functioning of people's minds (Clowes, 2015). Today, digital and connectable tools such as smartphones are powerful, very small, portable, and (thanks to WiFi and cloud technology) able to store a great deal of salient information about people's lives. These tools thus assume the function of an e-memory (electronic memory) by expanding cognitive memory (Clowes, 2015). Virtual reality is no longer synonymous with the Internet, so there is a need to reformulate the conceptualization of the Internet by taking into account its evolution. The extent of digital information in every sphere of people's lives has caused the integration of the Internet into the cognitive tasks people perform in their daily routines, leading to the consideration of the Internet as part of an extended concept of cognition (Smart et al., 2017). The concept of the Internet as a tool to connect to a virtual reality that is separate from the real world is no longer current, so a new concept of the Internet that takes its environmental features into account is needed. This concept is in line with Floridi's (2014) idea of an infosphere that shapes people's reality. The conceptualization of the Internet as an environment rather than as a tool leads to the reformulation of IAD theory. If the Internet is not just a tool to be utilized, the theoretical model of IAD cannot be based on behavior connected to its overuse, misuse, or abuse. Based on this opinion, we present arguments in favor of reconsidering the Internet as an environment rather than as a tool. In the following section, we explore the Internet's role in cognitive ecology, as well as the inadequacy of treating the Internet as a tool and thus of the current Internet-addiction model. One conceptualization that could help explain the idea that the Internet is a superstructure within which people operate is that of cognitive ecology (Smart, 2017), which has been defined as “the multidimensional contexts in which we remember, feel, think, sense, communicate, imagine, and act, often collaboratively, on the fly, and in rich ongoing interaction with our environments” (Tribble and Sutton, 2011, p. 94). Today's society is digital (Lupton, 2015), and the Internet represents the main part of its cognitive ecology. In the theory of situated cognition (Robbins and Aydede, 2009), cognition is embodied (Gallagher, 2005), embedded (Rupert, 2004), extended, and distributed or collective (Smart et al., 2017). These theories reconceptualize cognition; instead of the classical, individualistic and intra-brain conception of cognition, these theories take into account the relationships among the brain, the body, and the environment to determine the functional products of the mind (Smart et al., 2017). Thanks to the Internet's development (in terms of devices, apps, and social platforms), it can be seen as the principal structure of embodied, embedded, extended, and distributed cognition. Proponents of the embodied-cognition thesis claim that extra-neural bodily factors shape the course of cognitive processing (Anderson, 2003; Shapiro, 2007, 2011). Mobile or wearable devices such as smartphones are today part of people's daily engagements, and they allow continuous online access, which shapes the course of their daily activities and interactions (Smart et al., 2017). By contrast, proponents of the embedded-cognition thesis claim that the extra-organismic environment plays a role (although not a constitutive one) in cognitive states and processes (Rupert, 2004), thus reallocating cognition to within biological boundaries (Smart et al., 2017). The Internet can be inserted within this vision of cognition. For example, augmented reality devices (Smart et al., 2017) such as Google Glass can enrich the sensory experience and have repercussions on cognitive processes. Advocates for the extended-cognition thesis claim that cognitive processes supervene on the relation between a cognitive agent and the social environment in which that agent is situated (Smart et al., 2017). Internal (biological) structures and external devices work in a pair relationship in which biological structures can perform the same operations as external factors (see Clark and Chalmers, 1998) or in a complementary relationship in which external devices can perform operations that biological structures cannot, and vice-versa (see Sutton, 2010; Heersmink, 2015, 2016). The debate regarding the parity or complementarity of the Internet and the brain has not yet been resolved (Smart et al., 2017), and it is not our...