China's answer to Internet addiction? shock therapy

[CptStern]

oh what will the chinese think of next? removal of limbs for gambling addiction? public flogging for addiction to prescription pills?

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.

The Chinese government in recent months has joined South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in taking measures to try to limit the time teens spend online....

But no country has gone quite as far as China in embracing the theory and mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction.

The clinic in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, the capital, is the oldest and largest ....Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks.

:O
parents actually pay 10x their annual salary for this?

Inside Room No. 8 are toys and other figurines that the teens can play with while psychologists watch. Room 10 contains rows of fake machine guns that the patients use for role-play scenarios that are supposed to bridge the virtual world with the real one.

Room No. 4 is made up to look like home, with rattan furniture and fake flowers, to provide a comfortable place for counselors to talk to the teens. The staff tries to blend into the artificial environment. Before meeting with a patient, one counselor swapped her olive military uniform for a motherly cardigan and plaid skirt.

No one is comfortable talking about the third floor of the clinic, where serious cases -- usually two or three at a time -- are housed. Most have been addicted to the Internet for five or more years, Tao said, are severely depressed and refuse counseling. One sliced his wrists but survived. These teens are under 24-hour supervision.

it's right out of a 60's film on brainwashing

Among the milder cases are those of Yu Bo, 21, from Inner Mongolia, and Li Yanjiang, 15, from Hebei province. Both said that they used to spend four to five hours a week online and their daily lives weren't affected but that their parents wanted them to cut their computer usage to zero so they could study. Yu said he agreed to come because he wanted to train himself. Li said it was because he just wanted to "get away from my parents."

needless to say, the chinese are crazy sumabitches


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17251571/page/2/

 

[Parlez]

That is crazy! I would need intensive shock therapy though I sometimes spend up to 8 hours online playing WoW.