ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with an example, the Online Baby System (OBS), that demonstrates brain overload and a form of IT addiction called Pathological Internet Use (PIU). At the start of the millennium, we were part of the team that implemented the OBS, which provided a live video streaming technology in departments of neonatology in Dutch hospitals. The system allowed parents to virtually visit their babies in neonatal wards. The OBS was widely embraced by parents, none of whom claimed ‘brain overload’. However, over time some of them developed a form of PIU. In this chapter, we use the OBS to illustrate the characteristics of Information Technology as a socio-cognitive resource, and we propose an alternative explanation of IT addiction that recognizes cognition and emotion. We conclude with the supervenience of the Information Technology-ego problem.
