Slashdot Mirror
Outside Beijing, a Military-style Bootcamp For "Internet Addiction"
Press2ToContinue writes Last year, China recognized internet addiction as an official disorder. Since then, over 6,000 patients have submitted themselves for treatment, after some spent up to 14 hours a day online. And as these amazing pictures show, dealing with it is serious. The Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment Centre (IATC) is a military-style bootcamp nestled in the suburbs of Bejing. The young men that enter its doors are subjected to a strict military regime of exercise, medication and solitary confinement. Any kind of electronic gadgetry is completely banned. Additionally, patients are frequently subjected to psychiatric assessments and brain scans to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow. And the concept is gaining steam; the first Internet Congress on Internet Addiction Disorders was held in Milan in early 2014. Despite its recent official classification, Is internet addiction a real disorder? Or is it a red herring masking depression and escapism? And to make things more indeterminate, Isn't more and more time online the inevitable future?
There's a lot to escape and be depressed about.
Is internet addiction a real disorder?
"Internet" addiction is scapegoating the medium.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Back in the day when I was a pupil I had "library addiction" for several years. I spent most of my free time in the library reading books. I event took a lot of books with me to read somewhere else. It was a fascinating experience with all the knowledge in there. Nobody in their right mind would have thought it was a problem. This "Internet addiction" is not different in any way I can see.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes. Any activity performed in such a way that it inhibits a person or makes them unhappy can become a disorder, a very real disorder. The exact behaviour is not relevant. It could be counting your steps - people do it obssessively and it gets in the way of their lives and makes their lives difficult - then its a disorder.
2. Or is it a red herring masking depression and escapism?
It can be. It can also be an OCD of its own.
3. And to make things more indeterminate, Isn't more and more time online the inevitable future?
Depends on how you determine "the online". If your fridge is phoning home every time you open the freezer, then you are online, but you don't notice. You drive down the street and your cellphone is tracking your moves and phoning home. You are online. Gluing yourself to a chair to spend all day on Facebook is not the only way to be online, so while "more online time" may seem inevitable, how it is expressed in social practice is something else altogether.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Because I would have been executed a long ago as a serious repeated offender...
I actually recently watched a documentary about these places and they definitely didn't submit themselves.
It was usually teenage males who were tricked by their parents or other family members into going.
Just keeping the brain washing infrastructure in place, Repurposing the past for practice for the future. See Mind_control at wikipedia . (x no, literally "wash brain") Lifton, R.J. (1989). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. For instance.
Talk about a sexist article. Women are more addicted than men on almost a 10 to 1 ratio.
If an obsession does not "fuck up your life", it's just a hobby.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Sometimes we just need to get away from the ridiculousness that is reality.
Society, politics, and the whole world in general is just screwed. Is it so wrong that people are choosing to create their own version of reality through online interactions ?
The real question is: what can reality offer us now that the internet can't ?
that's what the Chinese are "protecting their ill citizens" from. the name on the top of the form changes, but it's always "you don't believe our crap, so you are nuts."
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Fricken totalitarians are scary. Remind me of SJW and pizza parlors for some reason.
Yes, I actually thought this would be the greatest weight loss game kind of system ever - "gain weight lose your Internet connection"
But no, the target customers thought removing the Internet connection or television was not a funny game at all.
instead it would be so "terrible",... and customers would happen to be forced to "disable", "remove", "destroy" etc. the thing..., because they don't need a baby sitter... because they are so damn good in losing weight. Maybe, China is arranging some kind of holiday camps to its food addicts too?
To combine the best addictions, go use the internet in your local public library today!
We give kindergardeners smartphones and tablets as the new babysitter while convincing ourselves that this will make them more competitive with the foreigners. Obviously, it MUST be the smartphones/tablets which make them better at math and science...
People die from internet addiction in Southeast Asia. Treatment like this is warranted.
... based on cellular reflexes, people who believe in free will are ignorant of the laws of nature. So it's quite possible for people with poor behavioral regulatory circuits to get stuck in bad habits and repeat bad patterns of behavior.
I spend 12 hours a day or more on the computer, (work + hobbies) but it's a relief to go up to the mountains for a few days and not have anything around.
Addicted? Maybe.
"Isn't more and more time online the inevitable future?"
I believe it is, however I believe that it will become more "transparent", we will be online but the way we do it will not keep us in one area, nor involve the use of a large gadget.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
It's easy to look for escapism when the real world is a slow motion train wreck that you didn't set in motion and have no power to stop. Getting out of the way might even be the smartest course of action. Enjoy the decline, folks.
They are all "diet privates".
(I have asked my sister to share my story with you, I no longer use the internet.)
When the ambulance arrived I could barely move. Lying on the floor in my own excrement, spasms jerking my body this way and that, I was not well. Not well.
The doctors determined that I was near starvation and dehydrated. They filled me with fluids. But none of that explained why I was dehydrated. My dear sister had a hunch that was confirmed by the psychologist at the hospital. They conspired with others to put me in this place.
I'm not sure exactly where I am, but I am sure that I can't find it on a Google map. They don't allow me to use computers. They said I had Internet Addiction. I think it's been around 3 weeks now. The drugs, food and kind people have been a help. I feel better. I don't know when, if ever, it will be safe for me to use a computer again.
I used to love slashdot. All you witty people who care about much more than just programming. I know you're there but I may never share your wonderful insights. Because I care so much I want to urge you to get help. Get tested. Don't let what happened to me happen to you.
Just a moment. What do you mean? It can't be! These damn drugs... Sorry people, I thought it was April first.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I'm sure the ChiComs have many behaviors they consider a "disorder" and can get you a one way ticket to the re-education camps.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I read books too when I was a kid
When I read the story of Robin Crusoe on that island with his sidekick Friday I imagined in my mind the story scene by scene, act by act, with how the different actors act in the different parts of the story
That story may be printed on the books but it came alive in my mind like a movie, completed with images / action / FX / sound - The book was the 'scriptwriter' and I was the 'producer' cum the 'director' cum the 'casting agent' cum the 'art director'
That is what books will provide the readers with
Now let's look at net browsing ---
Kids browsing the same story of Robinson Crusoe are provided not only the story, but also the drawings, and if they click enough links, they could get to stream animation / movie based on that story too
In such scenario the kids today do not get the chance to play the 'producer cum director cum casting agent cum art director cum special effect consultant' and so on, and so forth
In other words, kids of today have been deprived of so many things we bookworms got to enjoy back then !
There is a fine documentary on this subject called "China's Web Junkies".
All the young lads (they are all midteens) are put in these boot camps by their parents at great expense. They are not government re-education camps, there is no political angle to these kid's problems. Nor are they hackers of any kind.
The main point to realise is that they are not addicted to the internet as such but to online gaming in particular. And they really do seem to be addicts. Their bragging about regularly playing for 24 or 36 hours straight might seem to be exaggerated but when some of them escape during the film they are quickly recaptured... at the nearest internet cafe.
This is stupid. Every single thing is moving to a packet based switching fabric. Just about everything is on the internet now. The devices and services have internet addiction. Not you.
Unless you play world of warcraft and have a level 81 avatar.
...like to issue hyperbolic comments. Why would they make these efforts if it were "one way" ?
"one way" is the treatment YOU FOLKS gave to 100k Iraqis for OIL ("oil israel and logistics" - see Ray McGovern, a true American Patriot)
Do you now have a GF/wife and kids ? Any serious health issues in between the library and now ?
Being solitary is indeed a threat to your health, although some people seem to cope...
...computers are indeed reducing my ability to interact with people. And I can spend almost infinite time in front of the screen, because there is always something new to learn on the internets, some new framework to learn, some new language etc etc.
I do think we all need to limit the amount of time spent in from of the screen. Humans do need a serious amount of social interaction or they eventually become sick.
But hey, feel free to prove me wrong. Just dont bitch that life is shitty...
"limit the amount of time spent in front of the screen"
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The internet has been a great force of enlightening people about the nasty dealings of the rich and powerful. If you consume it in healthy doses, it can widen your horizon and immunize you against the propagdanda BS from the mainstream media.
I now know how propaganda worked in the Nazi empire, because my eyes have been opened just recently to the propaganda measures they pulled off in the recent war in Ukraine. We now know that our local media (Spiegel, Welt, FAZ, Zeit and also the smaller newspapers) are essentially centrally controlled by imperial groups like the Atlantikbrücke, CIA or BND. When it matters, the mainstream media will have one single, coherent message and it normally is not the whole truth.
But yeah, don't overuse the internet. Have strong relationships to other people, interact, have a girlfriend. Have kids. That's how man lived for a million years or more. Don't try to mess with your nature, or something is going to bite you seriously.
Was much more useful to mankind because it came with a Basic interpreter waiting for the kid in front of it. Plus a real keyboard. You could write a small program to calculate your math and physics homework and thereby learn a useful skill for your adult life. You could enlighten yourself to the utility of computers for mankind.
Compare that to the android crap, which is made for consumption, not for creation.
Game addicts are apparently also a serious thing in Germany, if media reports are to be believed.
Mankind did not evolve in cyber space, but some people effectively live in this space. Little wonder they have massive issues sooner or later.
This also explains why many software engineers are treated like kids by the rest of world. Spending 8 hours a day for years with a machine clearly degrades your ability for human interaction. That may be unjust (after all quite a few "social engineers" depend on the magic we build), but that is the way it is. Cope with it; actively seek social interaction to counter the problem.
I don't think it's healthy to expose a kid to that much cum.
Talk about a sexist article. Women are more addicted than men on almost a 10 to 1 ratio
Unfortunately this is China we are talking about
China is so damn backward as compared to the advanced society of the United States of America that over there Chinese females are epic failures and do not know how to demand an ironclad hiring quota for women-kind in the technology fields
And no ... their technology companies are not allocating $300 Million to promote the "women in technology" ideology either
Wanna blame? Blame them Chinese females for not being nazis enough!
Anything with a rewarding stimulus can become an addiction. But only a in a subgroup of people whose brains seriously screw up and over-react to the positive stimulus. It's more of an addiction spectrum than a switch, but there are people who are genuinely addicted to the internet (or online games, since the internet is really too broad a category; cue stories about Koreans playing until they die).
I don't know whether or not most people who go to this camp are seriously addicted. I'm sure there are a few, but all I know is that someone is making money off of this.
China has a large number of over-zealous parents who like to maintain absolute control over their children. I would worry about the cases where the kid is just being a kid, and the parents send them to the camp as basically punishment. The majority parenting method is basically a combination between monitoring, micro-management and favors stick a lot more than carrot ... and i'm talking real sticks, or slaps, or punches and sometimes kickings while your down
Read the books 'The myth of addiction' and 'Addictions is a choice'.
These people are selfish idiots who need to get a life, they act as if they have no control over their own desires...
I'd either hit the opium pipe or the Internet or both.
Stating that the "concept is gaining steam" immediately after mentioning how these people are being abused, is either purposely misleading, or poor editing. I'm not a grammar Nazi, but please stop with the click-bait, or you'll be losing more readers.
Just another day in Paradise
It just that these are played in computer cafes rather than at home.
Heavy veido game use is an issue for some young men in the USA.
I took my Internet Addiction Course online. I saved a ton of money!
The way the word "addiction" is thrown around debases its meaning. What is being talked about in most cases - shopping addiction, computer addiction, sex addiction, cocaine addiction - is really compulsive behavior. And what ends up happening, in practice, because of this, is that actual addiction, (such as to opiates), is treated the same as compulsive behavior. Or rather, vice-versa. The Chinese, at least, are appropriately treating this compulsive behavior with behavior modification.
I think it would benefit everybody to distinguish these two very different problems.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped