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p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- Although this picture looks as though it may have been taken a military camp in China, it’s a flag raising cermony at the New Hope Adolescent Education School, a licensed net addiction center in Shangrao, Jiangxi province.

But if it’s to be compared to anything, it might better be compared to a fiercely regimented jail, complete with live monitoring, surveillance cameras and wire-mesh.

The three people are “among the thousands of children and young adults now undergoing ‘treatments’ for Internet addiction at more than 300 rehabilitation schools, camps and clinics across China,” says Lan Tian in a surprisingly frank China Daily feature.

And most of them, “experts say”, were signed up by “nervous parents who fear their child is the victim of a 21st century disease”.

“Several official and independent reports on the issue warn of a rampant epidemic sweeping China, while government departments at all levels have sprung into action, closing down cyber cafes and announcing plans to install the Green Dam-Youth Escort filtering software on every computer,” says the story, going on >>>

The Ministry of Health even set its theme for last year’s World Mental Health Day on Oct 10 as “avoiding Internet overuse”.

“The harm an addiction to the Internet can do to Chinese adolescents is just as serious as opium,” said Tao Ran, 47, director of the Juvenile Psychological Growth Base of China, the country’s first Web addict rehab clinic. “Once teenagers become addicted, it is very difficult to completely cure them.”

Lei Xiaofeng, vice-director of student affairs at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, was also quoted by people.com.cn as saying that about 3 percent of those expelled from the college each year had Internet addictions. “It shows the condition has a big impact on students,” he said.

The actions and comments, and many like them, have spread fear among Chinese parents, most of whom are allowed only one child under the country’s family planning policy and are terrified of their offspring’s education being disrupted.

‘Covered in blood’

In August last year, “China has an estimated 107 million juvenile surfers, 13 million of them labelled addicts,” said p2pnet, quoting the Shanghai Daily.

And an illegal net “rehabilitation camp” was shut down and 13 workers, including its president, were arrested after a 15-year-old Deng Senshan died, said China Daily recently.

“In photographs shown to China Daily, Deng’s body is pictured with bruises and his face is covered in blood,” said the story, continuing, “Those photos are in shocking contrast to ones taken just 48 hours before, showing Deng smiling with his father and sister on the beach.”

But, asks this latest China Daily report, “is the fear surrounding Internet addiction really justified?” Not according to Kong Lingzhi, deputy director of the disease prevention and control bureau under the Ministry of Health.

“The belief that Internet addiction has become a serious social problem is incorrect. Many people think it is a great scourge of the country, but this is simply not true,” the story has her saying. “The ministry has organized a series of studies on related issues since 2008 and, although there are still no final results, they have already shown very few children are Internet addicts.”

The China Youth Association for Network Development, affiliated with the Communist Youth League of China, says studies in 12 major cities in 2008 showed 10% of all ‘juvenile netizens’ are net addicts, says the post, a finding questioned by Kong.

“Yes, Internet addiction is a noteworthy social phenomenon, but it’s not as serious as people think,” she says in the story. “The whole society is overreacting,”

Third in the most popular free-time activities

A recent joint study  launched by the health ministry, the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences found the net ranked third in the most popular free-time activities, says China Daily.

“Teenagers spend more time doing homework and communicating with friends than they do on the Web,” it has Gao Kan, director of science popularization at the CAST, stating.

“China’s Internet situation has its own characteristics” and “Internet addiction is not a serious problem, but that doesn’t mean people do not need to pay attention to it,” declares Gao Wenbin, “a researcher for the science academy’s psychology institute, continuing:

“Here, the majority of those overusing the Internet are adolescents. In western countries the majority are adults. The most common form of Internet overuse is online gaming in China, but it is not the case in other Asian or western countries.”

‘Low-frequency pulse’ equipment

An addiction clinic, “gave electric shocks to teenagers whose parents had admitted them against their will,” said the Shanghai Daily last year, stating, “People who spend more than 40 hours online each week will be considered Internet addicts under China’s new treatment standards for an affliction that’s estimated to be affecting the lives of millions of the country’s teenagers.”

Now, ministry officials last July “stepped in to ban electrical stimulation therapy for Internet addicts after it was discovered doctors at Linyi Psychiatric Hospital in Shandong province had used it to treat 3,000 patients,” says China Daily, but, “research by the China Youth Association for Network Development has shown the hospital simply replaced its apparatus with ‘low-frequency pulse’ equipment, and is continuing to administer a similar therapy”.

“The ministry should shoulder regulatory responsibility. Suicide is not an illness either, but anything to do with suicide comes under the health ministry’s remit,” states bioethicist Qiu.

“They and other government departments also need to strengthen supervision of rehab clinics to protect teenagers’ safety and dignity. The profiteering and violence by these institutes must be stopped.”

Meanwhile, “The hardships of growing up are inevitable and parents should be prepared to solve difficulties like Web addiction,” says Bu Wei, director of the research center for children and the media at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

“We cannot rush to resolve the problem of Internet addiction,” he says in China Daily.  “It is not something that can be solved in a day.”

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

China Daily – Is the Internet re@lly a danger to children?, January 4, 2010
Green Dam-Youth Escort – Green Dam censor boss gets death threats, June 24, 2009
p2pnet -Teen dies in China net addiction camp, August 27, 2009
Shanghai Daily – 40 hours a week eyed as Internet addict threshold, August 26, 2009
China Daily – Camp closed, 13 detained over death of teenage Net addict, August 10, 2009

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