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February 24, 2007
The China Solution
by Tina Grazier
This is one of those shocking stories out of China:
‘Their souls are gone to the online world’
Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.
Internet “addiction” is the problem…the Chinese solution includes electric shock, counseling, military discipline, drugs, and hypnosis. Parents pay as much as $1300.00 a month to send their kids to a facility; a heavy burden for most families since that’s ten times the average salary. It’s obvious that these parents are concerned about their children given the cost and severity of the treatment.
Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in this military-run installation, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!"
The methods can be harsh depending on the level of addiction. There’s some evidence that treatment centers may be coming to your neighborhood soon:
There's a global controversy over whether heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder, with some psychologists, including a handful in the United States, arguing that it should be. Backers of the notion say the addiction can be crippling, leading people to neglect work, school and social lives.
This story invokes many questions:
How many American kids are being harmed in this way and does it mean they're mentally ill?
Are these methods considered vile...in the same class as "torture"?
Why isn't the global community filled with alarm over this?
And the big one...Fellow adult bloggers and internet friends…should we be concerned for our own sanity?
Also of note in the story is the generally oppressive aspect of the “solution”:
The Communist government runs a program limiting Web access, censoring sites, controling online political dissent, and “has passed regulations banning youths from Internet cafes and has implemented control programs that kick teens off networked games after five hours.
Posted by Post Scripts at February 24, 2007 08:14 PM
Comments
This has nothing to do with Chinese kids being "addicted" to the Internet. It has everything to do with the impending doom of communism in China. It is all about power and control and how they fear losing it.
The Internet is to China is what blue jeans and rock and roll were to the USSR. Just think, when China folds, Cuba and California will be the only true bastions of communism left on Earth. I could go on but I have to play World of War Craft.
Posted by: Toby Stahler at February 26, 2007 06:40 AM