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Chinese "Web Addicts" Get Boot Camp, Therapy
itwbennett writes "A large number of Chinese parents are finding their teenagers to be exhibiting such psychological symptoms as depression, antisocial behavior, and slipping grades. The cause: Internet addiction. World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike rank beside Chinese role-playing games as those that hook the most patients, says Tao Ran, the founder of a youth rehabilitation center on a Beijing army base. Online chat programs more often hook girls, who make up a handful of Tao's current 70 patients. The teens are subjected to a 'strict regimen of military drills, martial arts training, lectures and sessions with psychiatrists.' And, most importantly: no Internet."
I would think of this as more of a "News" Article than anything else
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
I can stop whenever i want.... just let me post one more time....
Also a great way of recruiting for their already massive army...
http://www.zombieapocalypse.tv/
World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike... those that hook the most patients (boys)
Online chat programs more often hook girls
Why am I not surprised that the girls like to talk and the boys like to play combat (remember cowboys and indians? cops and robbers?).
Very indicative of our society as a whole. Just sayin' . . .
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Boot Camp is just a fancy dual boot on Intel-based Apple machines.
Don't forget child porn and cyberterrorism. They have those there too.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
American - kill all your allies in 'friendly' fire incidents. Full auto on anything that moves, may move or have previously moved. Aw Hell full auto on anything.
Chinese (according to the Geneva Convention on war ) Day 1 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
Day 2 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
Day 3 - One million unarmed troops invade Alaska and surrender.
.
.
Day 5 - US economy collapses US surrenders.
What's the grind like once you hit level 30?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
.. exposure to girls.
Here goes his business model:
1, Preach on media the harm of "Internet Addiction" on children.
2, Tell irresponsible parents that it's not their fault (which actually is).
3, Open an "Internet Addition" rehab.
4, Charge rediculous fees.
5, Abuse his patients untill they promise (or pretend to promise) they will never play World of Warcraft (or whatever their parents deem as harmful) again.
6, Parents get pleased and more parents send their kids to his rehab.
7, PROFIT!
After all, I must say he's slightly better than the ultimate asshole named Yang Yongxin. At least he doesn't employ high voltage shock therapy in his rehab.
50 years ago, going out was the norm. 20 years ago, occasionally going out was the norm.
Today, spending an evening at home is the norm, where it's cheaper and you can connect with someone halfway across the world who you know will share your interests, and not spurn you(and if they do, you can find someone else). You're also not faced with personal problems such as personal performance, social anxiety, or the real fear of making an ass out of yourself, etc. There's people you never have to face, but will listen.
Move forward 10 years, as the new kiddie-tech generation moves even further online? I see individuals who will prefer to remain connected at all costs because of this. We have people now who need to know all information at all times, need make sure that they're in instant contact with the world around them. And are experiencing this now.
I don't see it changing, I see it increasing. China, US, Canada, any country in the world can do whatever they like to try and change it. But the more interconnected the world becomes, the smaller it gets. The smaller it gets, the more people want to remain connected to it.
Om, nomnomnom...
If this works in China, it will be the next Obama Youth program...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Take a bunch of kids that like to sit around playing games and browsing for porn, isolate them from friends and family, label them as "addicts", brainwash them, put rifles in their hands and train them how to kill people, then declare them "cured". I'm glad that society has its priorities right.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Having gone through Boot Camp myself (Not in China mind you) I highly recommend it as a means of turning useless people into productive citizens.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
Let the Han kids and the Uighur kids duke it out on some deserted corner of Xinjiang. That'll teach them. Maybe they'll even come with some ideas to help their parents sort things out.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Most students that I teach in China (18-22) can't afford the computer required, so they play WOW and CS at their Internet bar. These places are usually dark, dingy and full of second-hand cigarette smoke. They make some of my teenage hacker basements look positively healthy. So I think it's not that the parents are really worried about the length of time spent playing, it's the conditions they are played under.
This has been going on there for YEARS! I mean really just look at what a simple search returns on this subject.
Communism will never work. People LIKE to own things.
Boot Camp? But.. are Web Addicts only Mac Users?
There is a difference between excessive to one person and excessive to another. I know plenty of people who don't get very much activity, eat things loaded in sugar and fat, yet are incredibly skinny and healthy looking. I know other people who exercise a ton, eat extremely healthy food choices, yet are very, very large. There are some reasons for obesity that go way beyond just what you eat. Some bodies have a natural tendency to be large, others have a natural tendency to be very skinny. You should not punish parents for something they can't really control.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...re-education camps.
THL phish sticks
Let's see ... the symptoms are depression, antisocial behavior, and slipping grades. Except perhaps for the last one, that sounds like any teenager I've ever met.
I am a bit ambivalent about this approach. On one hand, the Chinese government is trying to shape today's youth into something which will contribute to society. On the other, there could be unnecessary victims and they could end up screwed up and this approach might work in Creating a counter productive individual for society. I hope the good outweighs the bad but that will not be found out so soon.
It's much better than electroconvulsive therapy, which they have used.
I really don't think this is going to work, I've been through boot camp (USMC), and once I went back to civilian life (I had a shoulder injury that prevented me from finishing the last week of training and then going on to serve.) I was pretty much the same person. The only difference is when I came out I had military training, I feel more calm in stressful situations than I did before, and I'm more confident in my fighting and survival abilities. I still play video games and browse the internet as much as I did before I joined the Marines. So if you go into boot camp as an internet addicted teenager you're going to come out as an internet addicted teenager, with military training. Unless they're sending them into the army right after they're not going to keep in that mindset, they're going to go back to the internet and their video games. Perhaps sending them to a summer camp where they have many activities to choose from would be a better idea. Hikes through the woods, swimming, sports, and being encourage to speak to other people and socialize would be good for these people. The boot camp seems like it would be too much like work for these kids and they would just resent it rather than enjoy it.
I know plenty of people who don't get very much activity, eat things loaded in sugar and fat, yet are incredibly skinny and healthy looking. I know other people who exercise a ton, eat extremely healthy food choices, yet are very, very large. There are some reasons for obesity that go way beyond just what you eat....
Fair enough - but you seem to be making a classic mistake. It's not so much what you eat, but how much of it, that determines your weight. Now, as someone who has to work to control his weight - yes, I envy my fiance, who can eat whatever he wants. But the difference isn't that he can magically eat way more than I can - it's that his appetite is more easily sated. Sure there are also metabolism differences, but in reality a very obese person is almost certain to be burning more calories than a thin person at a similar level of physical activity, because all that fat takes energy just to keep alive, and more still to move around.
Where I'm going with this is: sure, life isn't fair. It's more difficult to control eating for some than for others - but at the end of the day what you eat is a conscious choice. Helping teach, encourage, and in some cases force (depending on age, we "force" young kids to do everything) people to eat in a way that will lead to a healthier life can be justified.
... where's my boot camp and interventionist therapy?
Cause the girls will be getting exposed to WoW players. Even Dick Cheney would be reluctant to use that kind of torture.
This is, btw, also why DARE is pretty much a waste of time and taxpayer money. But that's not the topic now.
What is "addiction"? Basically that the body (or mind) wants some stimulus that you handed him for a long time. Why does it want it? Because the stimulus was/is positive and not getting it is subjectively negative.
Which leads to the crucial question: Why did you start taking/using it in the first place? It's not like someone goes "Hey, it's Tuesday, it's colder than outside, let's start pumping heroin up our veins!" That's not how it works. Hell, by now pretty much everyone knows that addictive substances and behaviour are, in the long run, bad for you. Do you think anyone who started pushing thought H is "not really so bad"?
Drugs are a last resort means for people who have no other way to get a positive stimulus to their system. The worse they're off, the worse the drug they'll be willing to use. Let's be honest here, anyone here pushing H? Anyone? Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe we have a few ex addicts here, in that case the question to you: Were you as "well off" back then as you're now?
China, with its one-child policy, imposed an insane pressure on its youth. Parents only have one child to carry on their legacy, and that child has to PERFORM! Add a confucianist ideal and a booming market where anyone "smart working hard" can become rich and important, and you'll notice that not even a "western" only child can possible imagine what the pressure is like.
So, to make a long story short, those "boot camps" (and similar programs all over the planet, albeit maybe not as brutal) will not accomplish anything. Worst case they'll make it worse. They try to cure the symptom, but that won't solve the underlying problem. Addiction is never the problem itself. Take away an addict's "substance" but fail to solve the problem behind it and he'll just search for something new.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Stop it! Stop justifying obesity by giving fatties excuses! The general public is dumb enough to actually be grossly overweight in the first place, do you really think they need to repeatedly hear people say things like "well, some lucky bastards are just born with a high metabolism!", "Being large is beautiful!", "Beauty comes form the inside, there is nothing wrong with beeing plus sized"?
Fact is, you CAN'T gain weight if you put less energy into your system than you expend! Finding an online basal metabolic rate calculator isn't very hard either. Now, if you can't be arsed to learn anything about how your body works, spend 5 minutes with Google to find a BMR calculator and pay attention to how much you actually eat... Live a life unable to go to the beach, make people uncomfortable when you undress at the beach, get diabetes type 2 and die of heart complications at age 40.
Just don't force that on your children. If you do, you should be reported for child abuse.
On a somewhat related note.. I live in Norway and I can safely say that even though we are nowhere near USA level of crazy obesity, things are starting to change here as well. 7-8 years ago when I was in highschool, there were <5 overweight people in my entire school of ~300 students. These days, nearly everyone I see between age 15-19 is at least 5-10kg overweight. Hell, even the ones who happen to eat as much as they burn still look out of shape with girls sporting untrained thin thighs and flabby asses and the guys possessing the same level of upper body strength as my little sister! The exceptions are the morbidly obese and the sickly skinny, who seem to make up about the same percentage of the population now as the "10kg too much"-portion did a few years ago. Not "super size me" by any means, but still that is a lot different than a few years back!
Damnit, I meant "..unable to walk up a flight of stairs or sit comfortably on any bus/airplane/train not tailored to your weightclass"
So? We've all seen female Elves nak... Oh, you mean real girls!
They do exist?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Justifying being unhealthy? No. Being overweight is a symptom of an underlying problem - the problem is quite simply that you cannot regulate calorific intake/outgoing as well as a 'normal' person. That's not an excuse, it's a fact. It is down to the people who are overweight to recognise it as such, and deal with it - much like someone who is diabetic needs to take on board and pay attention to their nutrition and need to have insulin daily for the rest of their life. ... oh wait, if you were 'average' you _wouldn't_ be overweight. ... well, it's big business. What is not needed is 'lolfatties' prejudice and the kind of crap from people who find it easy - some people can't swim or ride a bike, but I guarantee that they _wouldn't_ have done so, if every time they tried someone breezed past, showing off, and giving them a shove in the process.
Recognise the problem - that people who are overweight are NEVER doing it deliberately. They're doing it because in this day and age where 'being hungry' is practically impossible, their self regulatory mechanism doesn't work as well.
So they _have_ to pay attention - every day - to how much they're consuming, how much they're using - you say it's easy to find a BMR? Sure, if you know that's specifically what you need to be looking at - oh, and if you accept that you are 'average' in that sense, which
And at the same time you'll find a hell of a lot of utter tripe, crap and hogwash about 'diet programs' from assholes who declare it 'easy - just eat less pie, fatty'. Or maybe tell you about the 12 week cabbage soup program or something. And the whole thing is utter lies, because a diet is _never_ a short term thing - it's what you eat every day for the rest of your life.
People who are overweight are people who, for whatever reason, have trouble self regulating their calorific intake. There is a lot of 'facts' published about this, that, and the other, and there is a lot of noise in the signal, simply because
It's a prejudice, much like any other. People don't have to 'justify' why they're diabetic. People shouldn't have to 'justify' why they are overweight. It's a metabolic problem, it's one that is actually relatively straightforward to fix, but it requires a lifetime commitment - both to understanding what's necessary, and then actually implementing it. Lets lose the bullshit, and accept that our society is broken, and get on with fixing it.
What the military does is most certainly brainwashing.
Then maybe they need a better detergent, or something.
My brain came out of bootcamp (1978) no cleaner than it was before...probably grungier!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
While some people have a slower metabolism than others, you can't buck the laws of physics. If you're getting fat you're eating too much for you.
Also I wouldn't regard self-reportred claims of how much people eat as being particularly reliable
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I not sure if parent post think this is good or bad, but to put it simply, I dealt with enough a**holes during the day while working, if there is a way for me to keep in touch with my friends without dealing with any more a**holes, sign me up.
50 years ago, you practically cannot interact with your friends without at least N-1 of you "going out", even if it is just next door. So unless you want to be left out, you have to "go out" most of the time.
20 years ago, you can somewhat keep in touch with most of your friends using the phone, so the need to "go out" becomes less.
Now, not only can you chat (voice/text) with all your friends together, you also can have a lot of interactions online, which used to be only possible by getting together (e.g. game of poker, risk, etc). So the need to have N-1 people "go out" just to get together is nearly nil. Wow, no surprise the generation that most used to interact online do not feel the need to physically go out at all.
Criticizing them for not "going out" is the same as a bat criticizing an owl for not interacting with the environment because the owl is no emitting sonar beeps. The owl has vision sees the environment in a way the bat cannot comprehend.
In the same way, the newer generation is interacting and "going out" online, unfortunately some older generation who hardly grasp email is unable to comprehend the level of interaction going on and assume the kid is "hiding himself".
Trying to cut the kid off the net to make him "go out" will be as useful as blinding the owl to get it to use sonar like a bat. It's not going to work. You just got to accept the fact the kids growing up now will interact with friends differently than you did.
Oliver.
Often the simple solutions don't work, either, which is why people need to be better educated about how the whole system works.
Most people that are obese (or even just overweight) will try, before anything else, to reduce their intake. For many (if not most) people, while this might have an initial effect of dropping a couple of pounds, it usually has the reverse effect in the long term of causing the body to store more fat, thinking that the food has gone away.
People need to spread the same food out a bit more and eat more times during the day, and they need to change the types of foods they eat so they are taking in a healthier diet. Usually this can all be done without reducing the amount of food a person is eating, and they will lose weight, because the body feels that food is more plentiful (since they're eating say 5-7 times a day instead of 3), and the food is better for them, making them feel better and possibly increasing their activity level.
Some of the heaviest people I've known in my life eat one or two meals a day. My father lost 50+ pounds by going from eating dinner and possibly a snack before dinner to eating 5 times a day (in fact eating more food, but also healthier food), and eventually increasing his activity level and taking daily walks (which of course increased in distance as he lost more weight).
The main point with dieting is finding a program based on resetting your system to process food properly and training yourself for the long term to eat right, with a clear path from weight loss to weight maintenance. If a diet doesn't include a method to stop losing weight (without regaining), then it's not a real solution. There are also a number of misconceptions about any popular diet plan, and people can easily go down the wrong path by following those misconceptions. The most obvious and popular of these is the Atkins plan, which most people use as an excuse to go out and eat fatty meats all day every day for a month or two and watch the weight 'miraculously' disappear, only to find that they can't keep the weight off when they quit, and it doesn't work as well when they do it again. The actual plan, on the other hand, includes a lot of vegetables and pushes towards adding carbs back into the diet slowly, monitoring the effect the carbs have on your weight, and coming to a level of carb intake that makes sense for your activity levels (and can be maintained, healthily, throughout your life).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
This notion of comparing teens who use the Internet, to teens who spend their time in gyms, going out in public all day chatting to people, is a false dichotomy. Consider the majority of teens who, before the Internet, simply stayed at home, and rarely socialised outside of schooltime. Did we have boot camps for them?
The fact that WoW is not "useful" is beside the point. It's meant to be a leisure activity.
And how useful is bootcamp, btw, for someone who has no interest in joining the army? How will having "Drill sergeants shout orders" at them improve their social skills for real life? How much opportunity will there be to practice their mathematics, when they're getting woken up at 6.20am to dress up in uniforms and march around, and learn how to fight?
Shooting things in a game is bad, but learning to kill people for real is acceptable?
How useful is posting to Slashdot? Shall we off you to boot camp?
Overweight is a minor issue, and I'm not entirely convinced that our definition of overweight is even appropriate. It's obesity that's the real problem. When you approach obesity, your biological processes start to get screwed up.
The fact is that if you're truly eating right, you're going to be eating a crap load of food, no matter who you are. The difference is in the content of that food. People just need to stop snacking (an extremely common cause of large amounts of uncounted calories) and stop eating crap. Just because those kids look skinny, doesn't mean they're healthy. Eat whole grain breads, brown rice, beans, and for god's sake eat lots of vegetables. It's sad that even our school lunches are indirectly required by the government to be crap. We don't need to eat meat every day. McDonald's food is killing us, and we're to blame for it because we're buying it.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
I'm no longer convinced that it's about how much you eat, but rather what you eat. You can feast on carrots, green beans, peppers, and broccoli all day and I would put money down that you won't gain weight from it. Our society is overloaded with high calorie, low nutrition snack foods and deep fried dinners. The idea that you can eat what ever you want so long as you burn it off is just plain misleading. Yes you can go to McDonalds and not fall off the bandwagon. But if you're going to McDonalds every week, or several times a week, there's no way that any normal person, no matter what their metabolism is, is going to be able to just "burn it off".
Just a note. I actually do hit up the McDonalds drive thru roughly once a week when I don't get a chance to take a lunch to work. I order a salad, which are actually quite good and filling.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
...so now when they get back home, and the parent tries to pull them off the internet (or tell the kids to do/not to do anything), the kids are now eqiupped with the skills to kick the parent's ass. Great thinking!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 SU CK IT MP AA
Obviously, socialism does have its benefits, as long as they don't force them to use Vista.
Ask Me About... The 80's!
I saw the first line and though, Wow! Chinese web addicts are being given boot camp-- great move, now they'll be able to run their Windows applicatons on Apple machines!
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I don't agree. A family I know had two kids. One of them got addicted to video games. The one who didn't went to work at a highly respected company and is quite successful. The one who played games dropped out of school and moved back in with his parents. This guy is a hell of a lot smarter than me, so it isn't some intelligence issue. They grew up in the same environment, had the same opportunities, yet have vastly different lives. There were no bad conditions in his life to force him in to addiction. Games are fun. If you play a lot, you can get really good and people will look up to you. That feels good. But at the end of the day, it doesn't pay the bills. If you can get the kids away from the Internet, it might break the cycle. They might get over their social fears and realize that the real world is more interesting and has more meaningful rewards.
You like to pass these off as ineffective, but I bet you it actually does help a lot of people. They might enjoy the martial arts they learn and keep that up. They might realize that they do spend too much time playing games and forge friendships that mean they will get out more. Will it work for everyone? Of course not. But to say it won't accomplish anything is talking out your ass.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I could be considered as much an internet junky as anyone and I can tell you it's bullshit... after 6 years in IT I needed a break and went for the real thing. I joined the Marine Corps and went off to boot camp. 3 months and I didn't shake, shiver, flip out, or have a break down. People have some crazy shit in their heads. Whatever; go on thinking you need to be born again. Or just walk away from the computer. I'm back doing the system administrator thing now and just as happy in front of the computer; I do take time out to go outside and do some camping, hiking, or even just walking trails in the park for a few hours.
"What is "addiction"? Basically that the body (or mind) wants some stimulus that you handed him for a long time."
Incorrect.
You just described dependence. Dependence is NOT addiction. Anything that alters brain chemistry can conceivably lead to dependence (meds, activities, etc.)
"Why does it want it? Because the stimulus was/is positive and not getting it is subjectively negative."
If you are dependent on a substance you will get withdrawal symptons. Perfectly normal. Does not indicate addiction.
I wish I had an intelligent comment to make on a story like this.. but this, and things like it, piss me off so much that I get virutally incoherent. China has NO concept of human rights.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
D.A.R.E. is basically the reason I started experimenting with drugs. Been having a damn good time too! Thanks D.A.R.E.!!
There is a war going on for your mind.
Heres a and article about Korea. 60 Minutes or Dateline ran a story on these.
Bingo. People do hard drugs because they are miserable, not the other way around. If you treat the cause and help people get their lives on track, help find new activities, the'll quit drugs on their own as their lives won't be so miserable and they won't need something to dull the pain. It's why I tell anybody considering drinking or using drugs for the first time: "NEVER use substances to dull pain."
Incarcerating people without due process and brainwashing, yes, brainwashing them into thinking and behaving in a different manner is NEVER beneficial in any country in any form, ever. It's rape of the mind and until you've experienced it, you'll never know quite how painful it is when you realize what they did. Even if you "behave" better afterward, it's not really you. If you want to help people, *convince* them to change or choose other paths of their own volition but don't force them. In the long run it never works.
Mark my words. In time, you will hear *horrible* stories out of these places in China. The boot camps in the states were bad enough to inspire congressional hearings... I can hardly imagine what these kids will have to go through and I guarantee it won't be what they advertise.
No, not really. Unlike being gay or being born with a skin color, being fat is a choice. Most people don't want to be it, but then they don't want to take the steps to avoid it either. Not only is it less attractive, it is less healthy. So I don't think it is good as a society to encourage people to be fat (I am talking about the "big is beautiful" crowd).
Furthermore, it is as simple as burning more calories than you consume. People have trouble because they are lazy. Instead of buying healthy foods and cooking they go get fast food or go to restaurants. They pay no attention to what they eat and they get very little physical activity.
Now I am not saying you need to look like a super model, that isn't realistic. But only in rare cases is there an excuse to be overweight. Those small number of medical issues aside, people are way too fat. The number of medical issues have not gone up. The convenience of food that is bad for you has.
So stop making excuses. Find out how many calories a person of your sex/height should be consuming, eliminate fast food, exercise AT LEAST 3 days a week (the more the better), eat healthy foods (uncooked veggies, fruit, oatmeal, whole grain breads, etc). Don't diet, change your lifestyle. You will be happier and healthier because of it.
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Being overweight is as much a choice as being diabetic. It isn't. That doesn't mean it's an excuse - when you're diabetic you will make yourself ill if you don't take in hand your diet, and control insulin levels. Same's true of being overweight.
But to say 'it's just an excuse, all fat people are lazy' carries with it the arrogance of someone who's never really had a problem with it. More importantly, regardless of that stupid prejudice, it doesn't actually help - beat someone up for being lazy/overweight, and how motivated do you think they're going to be to sort it out? It's a health problem, and it's a societal problem. It's one that needs sorting, and it needs sorting with something a little more than 'omg you're just lazy and eat too much, fix that and you'll be fine'. Because it _isn't_ that trivial.
Even your 'find how many calories you should be consuming' overtrivialises it - How many calories should I be consuming? Well, I can guesstimate based on the web, that it's 2500kcal a day for an adult male. If I use a BMR calculator, I get about that answer too... but I've actually gone to the trouble of a 'full medical' and measuring that, and it was about 150kcal/day lower.
Which means... I could do exactly what you'd just suggested, and end up gaining weight at a rate of about a pound a month.
That's kind of the point I was aiming at - you've just given well meaning advice to an overweight person, and you happen to also be wrong.