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China Treats Internet Addiction Very Seriously

Posted by Zonk on from the glad-i-don't-live-in-china dept.

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. "

17 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. This just in... by RingDev · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
    1. Re:This just in... by raddan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I suspect that this has more to do with the free flow of information than 'addiction'. Since when has China been so worried about the welfare of its citizens? That prison cell sounds really conducive to mental health.

    2. Re:This just in... by bunions · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > Since when has China been so worried about the welfare of its citizens?

      Since when has -any- country been so worried about the welfare of its citizen? Replace 'internet' with 'pot' and you're describing America.

      --
      there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
  2. Sounds about right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Sounds about right by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Insightful
      From TFA: > Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"'

      'Smith!' screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. '6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.'

      > Thanks to his parents' intervention and the treatment, he now has life mapped out until he's 84.

      But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

      And as long as I'm on an Orwell kick today, "the Slashdotters looked from TFA to the dystopian science fiction novel, and from the dystopian science fiction novel to TFA, and from TFA to the dystopian science fiction article again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

    2. Re:Sounds about right by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We are more advanced. Instead of putting them in jail we diagnose our kids as ADD and give them drugs.

      --
      It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
    3. Re:Sounds about right by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't kid yourself.

      My co-worker in the US did this to his daughter for 18 months when she started running away. There's a large facility with a capacity for 500 "students" in this city. They "reeducate" the kids. Sound familiar?

      He paid a lot of money and she was basically brainwashed back to a safe mental state (honestly- she was headed down a self destructive bad road).

      Parents have large amounts of freedom to brainwash their children until those children move out.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  3. This obviously works quite well by thousandinone · · Score: 5, Funny

    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..."

  4. Just a thought by andy314159pi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Spending 15 hours on the internet at a time might be a normal reaction to living in an extremely oppressive society.

  5. Tagged: excessive by WillDraven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Tagged: excessive by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


      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.

      His life plan:

      Age 17-23: School
      Age 23-84: Work in factory making crap for WalMart.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
  6. Before we get all high and mighty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Before we get all high and mighty by WolfWalker545 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Oh, they're still there. They've expanded beyond drug treatment claims to include 'behavior issues', but aren't staffed or licensed to deal with either. They usually get around that by claiming to be boarding schools, but then they frequently don't meet the licensing requirements to be schools, either. They now call themselves Therapeutic Boarding Schools for 'troubled teens'. If you look at the tactics they use for dealing with the kids, most of them fit in with what I was taught about brainwashing in North Korean and Vietnamese POW camps. It's no real surprise that a lot of the survivors of these programs wind up displaying PTSD later. A friend was sent to one of these places basically because she had problems getting along with her stepfather, one of her classmates there committed suicide not long ago (and it's certainly messed her up some, but she's coming to deal with it. Of course, one of the issues between her and her stepfather is that she's attracted to other women...)

  7. Compulsive behavior is not bad--just the Internet? by liam193 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thanks to his parent's intervention and the treatment, he now has life mapped out until he's 84.


    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.
  8. Internet addiction? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. Ulterior Motive by KermodeBear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  10. Human Rights Watch: Abuse of Psychiatry in China by reporter · · Score: 4, Interesting
    According to a report issued by Human Rights Watch in 2006 March 17, "The systematic abuse of psychiatry for political purposes in China became internationally known in late 1999, when large numbers of Falungong practitioners were reportedly interned in psychiatric hospitals. However, experts have long asserted that political abuse of psychiatry in China includes among its victims several other main target groups. In August 2002, GIP and HRW jointly published a 298-page report, 'Dangerous Minds: Political Psychiatry in China Today and its Origins in the Mao Era', which detailed China's extensive use of psychiatric detention as a means of silencing political dissidents, spiritual nonconformists, trade union activists, whistleblowers, and others. The report estimated that since the early 1980s more than 3,000 people had been incarcerated on such grounds."

    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.