Slashdot Mirror
China Treats Internet Addiction Very Seriously
eldavojohn writes "China has taken new extremes in preventing internet addiction in youths and is even offering boot camps to parents who want their child weaned from the electric teat. The article notes that 'no country has gone quite as far as China in embracing the theory that heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder and mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction.' The article mentions the story of Sun Jiting who 'spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"' Sun found himself spending 15 hours or straight on the internet. Thanks to his parents' intervention and the treatment, he now has life mapped out until he's 84. "
Youth engaging in self destructive addictive behavior. News at 11:00.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Old communism and new communism still have one thing in common: reeducation of deviants and defining any 'social' problem as a mental disorder that they can treat/imprison you for.
From TFA: "Sun looks forward to returning to school and getting on with his life. The first task on his agenda when he gets home: Get online. He needs to tell his worried Internet friends where he was these past few weeks." Obviously he is totally cured of his "internet addiction..."
Spending 15 hours on the internet at a time might be a normal reaction to living in an extremely oppressive society.
Seriously, I understand how internet addiction can take over your life, but being put in a penal institution is not the answer. And mapping out your life until you're 84? You've just had something else take over your life instead. Not much of an improvement in my opinion.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Many of these internet addictions lead to suffering a bullet-related death.
This reminds me of the drug treatment programs where teens were incarcerated in the US. They were much more popular in the late 80s and early 90s. The one we had locally, "Straight, Inc." used to advertise on TV all the time. There were cases of kids getting caught with a joint once and being sent there, mixed in with hardcore addicts and becoming more addicted off stuff smuggled in. Either that, or they were just isolated and abused. These companies were scandalized and faded into the background, AFAIK they may still be there.
If it starts to be an actual detriment (not eating, not sleeping, etc), okay - I can see the need for intervention. Still, this one makes me queasy a bit.
Why? Well, what about the requirements to be declared "addicted"? Isn't there a danger that safeguards could be tossed, and it would eventually boil down to just someone else's subjective opinion? Hell of a way to be got rid of in a hurry by a disgruntled low-level gov't worker, a pissed-off friend, etc. Anywhere else on the planet okay - I could understand that there would be a due process. But in a country which still prosecutes (and I quote) "hooliganism" (which can mean whatever they want it to mean), and lock dissidents up for years on end? Sounds like just an updated and modernized excuse to shut up anyone who makes the gov't feel uncomfortable.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I went to treatment when I was younger (for drugs), we had five year plans and such. We had a rating system where you're level 1-3 (for outpatient, level 4 is mandatory inpatient). Then if you had a serious drug addiction to say heroin you could by rights take an option to farm pigs in Alaska as a treatment option. We considered this rather extreme and was usually scheduled for 6-12 months. My addiction at 19 was a six year addiction to pot, meth, alcohol, lsd, mushrooms, cocaine, and opium (ordered by preference). Because, I didn't have any felonies I was considered a level 3 maximum outpatient required. This kid is worse off than the pig farmers for playing video games? I don't really get it and planning out to the age of 84 seems to be a setup for failure, I seem to think he's just trying to stay off of the 3rd floor.
Okay, let me get this straight. "Thanks to his parent's intervention and the treatment, he now has [replaced one compulsive behavior for another]." The need to organize your life 50+ years into the future is not far from the compulsion to spend 15 hours a day on the Internet. In fact, I would maintain that it is potentially a more destructive behavior.
Saying "Internet Addiction" is like saying "Ethernet addiction". It means nothing.
What is this guy doing for 15 hours? Is he chatting with friends? Young kids spend hours on the telephone before and this wasn't telephone addiction. Sure communication is better now, but simple chat rooms existed for modem users 20+ years ago. Nothing new there either.
Is this guy playing games? Is he gambling? Is he looking at porn? Is he sending emails? What is he doing for 15 hours?
The point being, the action that this person is doing online is what they are addicted to, not the network access. If you are addicted to looking at porn or playing games, for example, then that is the issue not "the Internet".
What about kids who play their playstation for hours and hours on end? Is this and addiction?
The bottom line is "the internet made me do it" is just another excuse.
Alex: You needn't take it any further, sir. You've proved to me that all this gold farming and internets is wrong, wrong, and terribly wrong. I've learned me lesson, sir. I've seen now what I've never seen before. I'm cured! Praise god! Dr. Brodsky: You're not cured yet, boy.
RFC2119
I believe that China takes internet 'addiction', or usage of it at all, very seriously because of the access to information it provides. Information that China would rather censor. This is a perfect excuse to indoctrinate.
Love sees no species.
One political dissident in China was imprisoned for 13 years in a psychiatric hospital.
That the Chinese government imprisons an Internet addict at the request of his own parents should surprise no one. The Chinese, not merely the government, regularly abuse psychiatry to achieve social or political goals.
The Chinese entity that is psychologically ill is not the Internet addict, the political dissident, or the other victims improperly imprisoned for supposed psychological problems.
Rather, the Chinese entity that is psychologically ill is Chinese society itself.