You are definitely onto something. I'm going to skew this comment towards something similar. As an early twenty-something, I'm urging more friends and family to stop using the internet loosely - meaning, use the medium as a tool but not as a form of entertainment. Extensively, use it as little as possible.
I'm not saying reject the medium but rather try to be acutely aware of how it affects things: perception, mind, body, people, culture, etc. Especially, and this doesn't have to do solely with the internet, try to take an objective view of yourself and your life. In my teens, I used to play a lot of video games and surf the internet for 2/3rds of the day, every day. One late evening, I had to take out the trash to my backyard where the trash-bin was. I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but late evenings are one of the greatest times of the day - it's just honeyed indolence. Well, from outside in my backyard, I noticed my room, I saw all the light coming from my television and my computer. It was sad. That was most of my life. That room. Since then, I try to use technology less and try to be outside as much as I can. But to the point, please take notice of things.
I sometimes think if the barbarians of the 4th and 5th Century are like today's people who adopt Amish principles, and the rest of the population as 4th and 5th Century Romans. There are extremely identifiable markers.
The only recollection I have on the Amish is from Family Guy - I'm not close to that. On a serious note, what I was trying to argue, in short, was: 1. Anything in excess is not good. 2. Try to think and be aware of the effects of things like the internet have on you, people, culture, etc.
Definitely a tool or at least, mostly a tool - I continue to learn a lot from the site, largely from the comments but also from the links to articles, etc. I suppose it's important to define tool and entertainment. As I see it: A tool is something that helps you grow, create, learn, etc. Entertainment, on the other hand, is something with no intention of helping you, it's only for gratification purposes.
For instance, I think, mindlessly scrolling through reddit.com is a form of entertainment. But if you are subscribed to only certain particular subs in order, for example, to become a better writer, that would be a tool. This is a shaky example though.
I'm not saying reject the medium but rather try to be acutely aware of how it affects things: perception, mind, body, people, culture, etc. Especially, and this doesn't have to do solely with the internet, try to take an objective view of yourself and your life. In my teens, I used to play a lot of video games and surf the internet for 2/3rds of the day, every day. One late evening, I had to take out the trash to my backyard where the trash-bin was. I'm not sure if anyone has noticed but late evenings are one of the greatest times of the day - it's just honeyed indolence. Well, from outside in my backyard, I noticed my room, I saw all the light coming from my television and my computer. It was sad. That was most of my life. That room. Since then, I try to use technology less and try to be outside as much as I can. But to the point, please take notice of things.
Alas, further reading: Don DeLillo's White Noise.