Symbiotic tool–symbolic means of labor and communication: Human development in a digital social environment

Abstract

Introduction. Drawing on the cultural–historical approach, this article analyses how advances in information technology tools influence the evolution of the human psyche.

Materials and Methods. The study identifies stages in the development of information technology tools that mediate human intellectual activity. Based on this identification, analytical methods are used to substantiate the consistent evolution of the psyche and the changes in higher mental functions.

Results. The use of signs and speech actions mediating human activity in face-to-face, written, and wired communication was followed by a transition to mass media (radio, cinema, television), which expanded the transmission of information to a mass audience. The development of higher mental functions was conditioned by an expansion of the range of teaching methods, including educational broadcasting, cinema, and television.

A qualitative leap occurred with the advent of personal computers and the transition from individual signs to sign systems, characterized by the accumulation and storage of information on external media and by automated transformations of such information. Programming languages emerged as new semiotic systems enabling human–computer interaction, while mental functions were enriched by automated actions with information arrays. Specialist knowledge was externalized into information resources, and expert systems of artificial intelligence were built.

The next stage in the evolution of the human psyche occurred with the development of the Global Internet, which became a repository for explicit knowledge. There was a significant reinterpretation of activity, where individuals became able to act as mass media. Researchers called the transformations of higher mental functions an ‘extension’ and a ‘complement’ of the individual. The psyche evolved through non-hereditary changes, driven by the increasing complexity of the forms of mental reflection of both physical and digital reality as semiotic systems grew more sophisticated.

Conclusions. The study demonstrates that human–machine symbiosis occurs within the digital environment. It also introduces the concept of ‘symbiotic tool–symbolic means of labor and communication’ and shows that, under modern conditions, the zone of immediate human development is expanding due to remote access to digital information resources and network communications.

The consequences of this symbiosis may manifest as mutualism, benefiting human development, or parasitism, where the exploitation of the machine deters the development of mental functions.