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China Bans Shock Treatment For Internet Addiction
angry tapir writes "China has banned the use of shock therapy to treat Internet addiction after its use at one hospital sparked nationwide controversy. The hospital drew wide media coverage in recent months after Internet users claiming to have received the treatment wrote in blogs and forums about being tied down and subjected to shocks for 30 minutes at a time."
Nothing gave me more pleasure that thinking of WOW power levelers with electrodes attached to various body parts.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Honestly, this seems like another human rights abuse... people should have the right to choose if they want to go through shock therapy!
but did we really require the big pic there?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
In other news... "Internet addicts treated with electricity". The real story here is that this is there to be banned in the first place.
Does China even have such a thing as "nationwide controvery"?
Yes.
Or is the "nation" here the United States? Or maybe Canada?
No. It means China. You ought to get out more - there's a whole world out here. We have controversies and everything.
I'll chalk this one up to western ignorance over how much the Chinese public actually knows, not blatant bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal#Chinese_public
When electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is used in psychiatric settings here in the West, patients are completely unconscious and pumped full of muscle relaxants to keep them from jumping all over the table. Since they're unconscious, they feel no pain.. completely different from what the Chinese seem to be doing, which seeks to use electric shock as painful punishment for too much WOW.
Needless to say, I didn't RTFA.
The hospital drew wide media coverage in recent months after Internet users claiming to have received the treatment wrote in blogs and forums
So the internet addicted patients used the internet to complain about the problems with the internet addiction treatment?
That is not shock treatment. The currently accepted method of shock therapy is designed to treat epilepsy. They were using it for negative reinforcement. Its just as effective as torturing someone. This is definitely a human rights violation and the genius behind this should be punished.
Everyone brings up that scene as if Vaikman was messing up his experiment just to flirt with the chick, but that ignores his true brilliance. Sure, he fudges the test for her -- she clearly is not psychic, she's just there as a control, so it really doesn't matter if she ever gets shocked or not. It isn't like he's testing electrocution of normal folks. But as for the guy, how is seemingly shocked for giving the right answers -- that's the whole experiment. Vaikman even says so: "I'm studying the effects of negative reinforcement on ESP ability." In other words, will you keep being psychic even if you get electrocuted for it.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.
First and foremost, there's two kinds of electro-shock therapy. One is simple aversion therapy, putting the person in front of the computer and when they try to open the browser a painful shock is given. That doesn't sound like what they are trying to accomplish here so I'll assume that it is the second kind, the kind which actually tries to change the way a person thinks and feels about memories.
Done correctly there's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of shock therapy, it's even made something of a minor resurgance in the US for treating PTSD and depression. The idea is that you shock the brain while it is remembering the dramatic memory, cuasing the brain to either fail to store the memory or to store the memory without the emotional content.
And the crazy thing is that it actually works pretty much as advertised. The problem is that there is no garauntee that the patient is thinking 100% about what you told them to think about; people's minds wander and if the person just happens to be thinking about something important to them, significant damage can be done to the persons memory. Obviously, the people being treated were not giving their informed consent for those procedures, nor does it seem to me that 30 minutes at a time (if accurate) is the correct way to administer the treatment.
I just watched it again and they're both getting the answers wrong. only the girl isn't being shocked, whereas the guy is. the only one he gets correct is the last one (a couple of squiggly lines) before freaking out and leaving.
The most prevalent "shock therapy" currently in use in the US is electro-convulsive therapy (ECT). It is used to treat major depression that is not responsive to drugs. It has nothing to do with retrieving or "erasing" memories, only with zapping the brain in hopes that neurochemical imbalances will be alleviated during its recovery from the trauma (shock), and hopefully for some time after.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
This isn't ECT. This appears to be aversion therapy. Just because it's done wrong and the shocking last long doesn't make it any different. The same has happened at Judge Rotenberg Center in the United States where a slightly more brutal form is used (kids permanently strapped to devices triggered by remote control).
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-07/14/content_8426874.htm
According to the Guangdong-based Information Times, shocks were given if patients broke any of the center's 86 rules, which included prohibitions on eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal, and sitting in Dr. Yang's chair without permission.
-- Remember, we're not happy until you're not happy. -- Local FAA Inspector --
Which is evidence that, when it come to the mind, we're still just cavemen bashing things with rocks.