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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."
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.
...Except for the fact that I consider it a right to use what you payed for so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. This "boot camp" takes away those rights (anyone else find it just a bit suspicious that its located on an army base?).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Kids probably aren't paying for the Internet connection and they do not have the rights of an adult. The addiction is hurting their intellectual and social progress. Is that their choice? Not while they are dependents.
Americans send their fat kids to boot camp. I really wouldn't be suspicious.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
The idea that "fat camp" is any more acceptable than this crap is deplorable.
It's *China*. When it comes down to it, nobody has any rights, in the sense that Europeans or Americans think of rights.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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.
Except for the fact that it's the parents that are sending their kids to this place. Believe it or not, parents actually have an over riding authority on what their kids will and will not do even in the US.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Oh, don't worry, they're catching up.
That's the great thing about exporting American culture... eventually, the rest of the world will be as fat and lazy as we are.
It's obvious where this is going. Just read all the articles about the billions we're spending on the development of remote control flying killing machines. Our enemies will be too fat too run away, but our technology will allow us to fight even as we need to clean ourselves with a rag-on-a-stick.
World domination is at hand!
MWUA-HA-HA-HORK-acktph-[gasp]-[grunt]-HORK-[splat]-HA-HA-HA
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Aside from the fact that the parents are almost always to blame in cases of child obesity, what exactly is wrong with "fat camp"? Quite honestly, morbid child obesity without a clear medical explanation should be grounds for child abuse.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
What's the grind like once you hit level 30?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
How? I'd imagine that a ton more people are more severely addicted to TV, sports, books and activities considered "normal" than are "addicted" to MMOs. I'd imagine the guy who spends 6 hours a day playing WoW is better off then the guy who goes to the gym for 6 hours a day. As for social progress, its a lot more social to fire up a game of WoW and chat than it is to go to the gym. And intellectual? With WoW you are constantly reading and writing and doing math.
Spending 6 hours a day doing something does not make it an addiction. Suffering from depression because you aren't spending 6 hours a day doing something makes it an addiction (outside of sleeping and autonomous functions). Addiction will cause everything directly not linked to that addiction to suffer as a result of it to one degree or another. Spending time talking to people in Azeroth is not as socially healthy as talking to people face to face. It's healthier than spending time in front of a tv or book. As a freetime activity, it's healthier than many things unless you let it become detrimental to your real non-make-believe life. It's not a problem when an activity is a healthy relief of pressure and stress... It's a problem when it's an addiction, then you may need help to return it to normal, healthy levels.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
.. 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.
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
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...
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.
I also hear that drinking Coca-Cola is a lot better than drinking water.
You might end up talking to someone at the gym, and at the very least you're among people. When you're playing WoW you're all by yourself. Contrary to what some nerds tell themselves, chatting online does nothing to improve your social skills.
I can't remember ever doing any math in WoW, and the reading was mostly limited to finding out what I need to kill next.
You did not explain how WoW keeps you in shape and improves your physical health (oh, wait, it doesn't!).
World of Warcraft is not productive or useful, and not a substitute for social interaction, intellectual stimulation and excercise.
Addicted to gym is worse than addicted to WoW?
Now I've heard it all.
Every time I read about someone proclaiming the virtues of WoW and how it teaches reading, writing, math etc. I just have to laugh and wonder whether the OP is just trying to justify their own pathetic (yes, I think WoW addicts are pathetic) addictions
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!
With your first point, you're setting up strawmen. Depression from loss or trauma is not the same as withdrawal symptoms. I used the line to make a very limited, simple point. There's no argument in stretching it beyond the point it was meant to make. I didn't feel it neccessary to write an 60,000 word essay on the differences between hobby and addiction.
With your second paragraph, you're skirting the issue. Is it a better social experience to speak with a friend face to face or online? It's healthier to talk to a person than to talk to words on a screen. Allow me to make an analogy of this conversation if we were discussing food:
Me: It's healthier to eat vegetables than junk food. It's ok to eat junk food as long as it's not interfering with the rest of your diet.
You: What if junk food is all you have? Not everyone has vegetables available.
It is simplified, but contains the neccessary arguments. I believe you are capable of answering your own questions at this point, even if they were meant to be rhetorical (I won't assume whether they were or were not).
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
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.
That's because "rights" are an idea from western civilization, and most other cultures had different notions about justice and social harmony. Considering that over 40 million Chinese died during the "Great Leap Forward," and countless more before that in previous wars and revolutions, we don't have the same perspective on stability that they do. The coastal city of Ningbo, for example, was bombed with the bubonic plague by the Japanese during World War II. The amount of violence and upheaval that the Chinese have faced in the last hundred years is incredible, and sometimes I think that we Slashdotters would do well to relax and give them some time to sort things out (it is their own country, after all). They have a 5000 year old civilization, after all, and things aren't going to implode because pimply-faced teenage kids have to do martial arts rather than play World of Warcraft.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
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.
Rights are an important part of humanity. Depriving people of that deprives them of their humanity. If we can't judge the Chinese government for depriving citizens of rights, then thats no different then allowing waterboarding in the US (its part of our culture) or cannibalism (theres nothing wrong with cannibalism, its part of their culture).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...re-education camps.
THL phish sticks
...sometimes I think that we Slashdotters would do well to relax and give them some time to sort things out...
The Chinese are going to "sort things out" whether Slashdotters relax, don't relax or even throw a massively coordinated e-tantrum. Slashdot isn't actually really all that influential as it turns out.
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.
It's much better than electroconvulsive therapy, which they have used.
I mean, I am all for fighting obesity in all ways possible, but it just doesn't seem right to beat children or otherwise abuse them simply because they are overweight.
Not to mention it isn't very fair. It's not like they can run from you. Or if they can, it's not like they can run far.
That's because "rights" are an idea from western civilization, and most other cultures had different notions about justice and social harmony.
http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ By the way, what exactly are you talking about? Chinese have had a turbulent history, so what? We shouldn't be critical of the current Chinese government because 40 million have died at the hands of its predecessor with whom (on paper at least) it shares the same ideology? I don't understand what your point is.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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.
Yes, and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights reflects the western "rights" tradition. You think that just because a document exists in an international peacekeeping organization, that it's really a part of other cultures and accurately reflects their values? If so, that's pretty naive.
If China does not stand behind UNHR, it should state clearly what parts of it it disagrees with because they don't "reflect their values". China is a grown up country, it doesn't need you to defend it. But just out of curiosity, which of the enumerated rights in that document you think don't agree with Chinese values? They were drafted in order to be universal, hence the name, and one of the main people involved in drafting them was actually Chinese (P. C. Chang - admittedly from Taiwan but surely representative of Chinese culture and values).
I also mentioned the extreme amount of violence in China's recent history to contrast it with our own country's, which has not had any invasions or sustained any real violence on anywhere near the same scale. The average American Slashdotter is likely to have a very different perspective, in which it seems reasonable to view WoW-deprivation as some sort of evil government tyranny.
Oh, well, that I can agree with. I don't think the story in this article is a major example of government tyranny or anything like that. However it's worth remembering that there are plenty of real examples of government tyranny in China and saying that somehow that's ok because it's their culture to not respect the rights of individuals is patronizing as well as untrue. I know plenty of Chinese people here in the US and they seems to have much the same values as I do.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You are confusing government policy with human culture. Chinese culture has no native rights tradition (or native communist tradition), and instead focuses on individual consciousness, especially in the native philosophies of Confucianism and Daoism. Even laws are viewed as failures of the government and its people. These traditions view society in terms of the individual, rather than advocating overt methods of government control and social change. Over time, people began accepting western ideas about rights, communism, and other things, but these are in no way Chinese ideas because they are only foreign imports.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
We're not talking about different notions of justice and social harmony here. They don't have to have the same government and society as us, but everyone should be guaranteed basic human dignities such as freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, protest, fair trial, petition, etc. I am pretty impressed with the progress China has made in the last 30 years, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve criticism. But plenty of countries have gone through hard times and the ravages of war without turning into totalitarian states.
Just look at what they are doing in Xinjiang right now. They repress Uiger culture and language, while forbidding Muslims from worshiping freely. The Han ethnic group has been encouraged to migrate in and are given preference for jobs. They are systematically destroying a culture. That is racial and cultural oppression, not "different notions about justice."
And can we stop with the 5000 year old civilization nonsense? It's not like they've been stable for that whole time period. And only in retrospect can the vast array of civilizations that existed in that area of East Asia over the last 5000 years ago be called Chinese. They've had empires rise and collapse, gained and lost vast swaths of territory, been invaded and conquered multiple times, had entire systems of governments collapse, religions appear, spread, and disappear. They aren't any more or less stable than any other ancient civilization, they just started earlier.
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.
e-tantrum
This word is the most descriptive I've seen this year. It applies to so much "outrage" strewn across message boards, not just on Slashdot...
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
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!
Untrue? Thousands of people were evicted without compensation to make space for Olympic venues. And how about Tiananmen Square?
Do you think there might be some form of sample bias there?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
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]
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.
No waiver is ever signed that permits the physical abuse of a child. It is a paid service, not a penitentiary. The fat kids, or for the sake of staying on topic: internet addicted kids, are treated with as much respect as they show.
These programs aren't the brutal prison scenes many may imagine.
In the end, even if a kid doesn't lose one pound at fat (boot)camp, hopefully he can come away with the discipline to "just say no" to that Krispy Kreme.
Something witty.