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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."
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.
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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
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
...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.
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.
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!