China's Internet Addiction Clinic

An anonymous reader writes "China has decided that if you are spending too much time online, you must be an addict. They've just opened a clinic to treat these internet addicts. Scarier is the head gear they have one patient hooked up to, and the fact that they think that this is some sort of epidemic and will shortly be expanding and adding 200 more beds to their clinics. In my opinion, the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day. " We also covered this story last july.

Comments

Gonna have to face it....you're addicted to DUPES

[TripMaster Monkey]

Story is a dupe...original story can be found here.

I'm not complaining, mind you...the original story garnered a scant 31 comments, so I'm glad to see it posted again. I'm especially glad to see the pic of the bizzare headgear composed of equal parts ignition wiring and surgical tubing...I have a new wallpaper!

Seriously, though, from TFA:

Wang Yiming, 21, is a self-confessed internet addict, one of a growing number in China. He used to spend hours online each day, often going without food or sleep. His face is drawn and sallow.

I went through the same thing during my big MUD/MUSH phase back in the early 90's...14+ hours online every day of the week, and I was losing weight because I was forgetting to eat. But you know what? Somehow, I survived, and I didn't need some scary nurse wrapping my head in neo-bondage gear to do it. This 'clinic' is selling digital snake oil...nothing more.

Fear mongering

[Hrodvitnir]

If you think that being online can be addictive then you're less likely to surf around and read things the government doesn't want you reading.

Re:Fear mongering

[robertjw]

Good point. I think too many of us are naieve to the propaganda a government can put out. This could very well be an attempt to slow growing internet use or at least make tech geeks that spend hours on the net reading western news stories and subversive content look bad.

Relative comparison is irrelevant

[koniosis]

the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day.

And gambling is also way better than alchol or drugs any day, does this mean these things shouldn't be treated? Judging the seriousness of problems on a relative basis isn't going to help anyone.

Re:Relative comparison is irrelevant

[tehanu]

Actually, gambling addiction is a really big problem in Chinese communities. So much so that gambling addicts who destroy their careers and families feature a lot in HK TV shows, much more so than drug addicts or even alcoholics. Strangely enough, at the same time, gambling is idolised - often in the same TV shows with the gambling addicts. I guess Chinese just love gambling. Now that I think about it, my family (which is Chinese) taught us kids how to gamble before we even started school :) I guess it's a good way to learn your numbers and basic maths...I strongly suspect gambling is a much bigger problem than internet addiction in China.

The main problem I suspect is the internet cafes. If the computer is at home, the parents can control its use (by force if necessary). However, with internet cafes it is out of the parent's control. Now that I think about it, it has the potential to be worse than gambling as gambling at least is constrained by money.

Internet Addiction Clinic!

[jimberini]

Cool...do they have a website? how 'bout an RSS feed?

Please report for re-education

[RobertB-DC]

In my opinion, the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day.

You couldn't be more wrong. Alcohol and drugs suppress your higher brain functions, as well as your desire to do anything but get more alcohol and drugs. Properly managed, you will continue to be a loyal servant of the state, since we produce the alcohol and tolerate the drugs.

Excessive use of the Internet, on the other hand, could lead to independent thought, social instability, and rebellion.

Please report to Minitrue immediately.

Depends on your Definition of Safer

[LexNaturalis]

Granted, most people don't go out killing folks on account of the internet (with some exceptions of course), but an "addiction" to the internet can be extremely damaging nonetheless. Whilst I was in HS I saw my grades drop from straight A's to C's and D's because I was online so much I didn't do any homework or studying. So basically I had no social life (unless you count chat rooms and the like) and wasn't very productive at all. Of course, I managed to beat my own addiction by just setting limits when I actually went to college, and I graduated Salutatorian and got married. I obviously agree that Internet addiction is real, and I can realt personally to Wang Yiming in TFA. I don't really think you need a clinic though, but maybe.

Addiction that stems from the mind, and not drugs, is a real thing. I had a college professor who was addicted to running and the "high" it gave him. It got to the point of being unhealthy. Right now, I'm only mildly skeptical of the clinic, but from TFA it doesn't seem that China is "Forcing" people to go, so if a person feels they should voluntarily submit themselves to treatment then I say more power to them. Recognizing an addiction is really the first step. I'm sure, just because this is China, that people will react strongly to it, but I'd wager that at least a few /.'ers suffer similar addictions to the internet. Just my two cents.

That's not the point

[DarkHand]

In my opinion, the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day

But alcohol and drugs don't expose you to the concept of freedom and independance. What they're really trying to stop is the influx of such ideas.

They also have freedom addiction clinics

[TheNarrator]

In a "perfect" totalitarian state only the insane can disagree with the state.

China's Psychiatric Terror

At its triennial congress in Yokohama last September, the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) overwhelmingly voted to send a delegation to China to investigate charges that dissidents were being imprisoned and maltreated as "political maniacs" both in regular mental hospitals and in police-run psychiatric custodial institutions known as the Ankang. (The word literally means "Peace and Health.")

The psychiatrists who staff these institutions, Dangerous Minds shows, tend to assume that their patients are mad because of their political beliefs or actions. The diagnoses made in both the political dissident and Falun Gong cases, ranging from "delusions of reform" to "paranoid psychosis," are highly reminiscent of the long-discredited label of "sluggish schizophrenia" that the Soviets used to apply to their dissidents and religious nonconformists.

scary nurses

[Infonaut]

scary nurse wrapping my head in neo-bondage gear...

You say that like it's a *bad* thing.

Mental Health Treatment and Totalitarian Countries

[jenkin sear]

Totalitarian countries- which China aspires to, although they cannot achieve it at the moment- have historically used mental health as a way to subjugate and control dissidents. No stalinist or maoist show trial was complete without a learned doctor explaining that the defendant was almost certainly crazy (and if they weren't, they probably would be by the time the train got back from Siberia). Mental health hospitals were used as prisons for a special class of criminal- those who committed thoughtcrime. These "clinics" are nothing more than an extension of this totalitarian approach.

It's not surprising that China is undergoing an internal struggle over how to handle the internet- the net is the most obvious disease vector for thoughtcrime there could be. It's also the key to unlocking China's economic potential, allowing much simpler commercial integration with the rest of the world. It's hard for the authorities to keep a lid on it- no matter how much companies like google, cisco, and yahoo willingly participate in selling freedom down the river.

I suspect that this is intended to be a warning to dissidents- 200 beds in China won't be terribly effective- and perhaps a symbol for the other members of the politburo as to how sincere their sponsor is in his willingness to crush dissent, particularly people who dare to post anything of significance on their blogs.

These guys don't play games, they kill people.