Treating China's online addicts

By Daniel Griffiths.BBC News, Beijing
The internet is taking China by storm, with millions of people logging on in record numbers and web cafes busier than ever.

: Chinese youngsters sleep at an internet cafe on June 11, 2005 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China.
Internet addiction is reaching epidemic proportions in China

Rising personal wealth means more people are able to buy computers or pay to go online. The vast majority are young people using the net to chat or play games.

But behind the boom, there is a downside.

Wang Yiming, 21, is a self-confessed internet addict, one of a growing number in China. He used to spend hours online each day, often going without food or sleep. His face is drawn and sallow.

He said addiction changed his whole life:

“A month or two after I started surfing the internet, I failed some of my school tests, but I was too afraid to tell my parents. When my father found out, he was very angry.

”But I couldn't control my addiction. Friends were also telling me that I was on the net too long, but I thought: ‘It’s my life, I can do what I want.' I became a real loner, was withdrawn, and wouldn't listen to anyone.“

A young Chinese internet addict receives an electroencephalogram check at the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital July 6, 2005 in Beijing, China.
The clinic provides medical treatment and therapy

For help, Wang Yiming went to China's first internet clinic, a low-rise, anonymous building in central Beijing.

All 15 patients when I visited were young men - the main social group affected by this problem - and they all told a similar story of how their addiction to the net destroyed their lives.

The clinic itself is part of a bigger addiction centre also treating those hooked on alcohol or drugs. The internet addicts go on a two-week course involving medical treatment, psychological therapy, and daily workouts.

The latter are a key part of the programme. Many of the men have spent every waking moment in front of a computer screen and have never experienced regular exercise.

Dr Tao Ran, head of the clinic, said the scale of the problem in China was enormous:

”Every day in China, more than 20 million youngsters go online to play games and hit the chat rooms, and that means that internet addiction among young people is becoming a major issue here.

“And it's only recently that the authorities have started to wake up to the seriousness of the problem with more articles in the papers highlighting the dangers of going online for too long,” he said.

Rising demand

The clinic is getting an extra 200 beds next year to meet demand and new centres are due to open in other major cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou.

But the programme only lasts two weeks, followed by minimal after-care. Many have their doubts about the long term, like one patient's mother.

“The work of the doctors here at the centre has been very important, but of course I'm still worried,” she said.

“I admire the doctors for what they have done so far and all we can do is follow their advice and knowledge to help our son,” she said.

All the men know this centre is just the beginning. Now they must return to the outside world and the real test for these computer addicts.

And with millions of Chinese logging on every day, it is likely that the country's first internet clinic is going to have its hands full.

Read a god damned book!

Its like being addicted to say…running. Theres no chemical addiction, just mental.

Those people have weak minds.

Now don't get me wrong, I love teh internets, but…what's so exciting about it that you can spend hours on it? MMORPGs yeah, but just the internet? I don't get it. YouTubing or Myspacing can only be entertaining for so long before it gets repetative.

why miss food foods good and books are cool

i wonder if the intenet has like an less addicting alternative drug like “methadone”.
maybe it's like text messaging or something

i can see the “addicts” texting back and forth to each other, trying to get that rush you get from being in a chatroom

Dude, that's just crazy, I'm glad I'm not addicted to the internet. I mean I… I… er… what else is there to life besides internet? 0_o

I'm i the only one who sees it as ironic that we are on an internet taking about how its a bad thing… well it made me giggle.

But to tell the ture it is conserning.

herio
why miss food foods good and books are cool

yes food. you'd think their stomachs would say something…

I choose to be on the internet (and I have no outside life).

Is this even an addiction? Addictions cause withdrawls, either physically or mentally, when the addictive substance is removed. Tolerances also develop, requiring more addictive substance to get the same results. They also tend to have harmful effects.

At best, these are corner cases, caused by a lack of self-government, bad parenting, chemical imbalances, or some combination of the above. Some kid grew up not having a real life, so he turns to the Internet for a second one. (Not SL, of course… it's full of furries.)

We've had recluses since the beginning of time. This is nothing new. They just turn to the Internet because it's relatively anonymous, and much more expansive.

I wonder what they use to ween you off of the internet. God knows i wouldnt make it cold turkey – they might use heroin or something less addictive to get you off of it.

MY new drug of choice is Heroin.
I went cold turky off the internet for three months because of computer problems. All it did was piss me off because I had to go over to other people's houses to use it. I realized I absolutley need it for work.

here's the internet addiction test
http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/internet_addiction_test.htm

hahaha
i like these question
“How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?”

“How often do you feel preoccupied with the Internet when off-line, or fantasize about being on-line?”

and the clinic's site
http://www.netaddiction.com/clinic.htm
so if you want more infomation about being addicted to the internet, log on to the internet. hahaha..it's like feeding your drug habit.

3. What causes Internet addiction?
Internet addiction can be understood by comparing it to other types of addictions. Individuals addicted to alcohol or other drugs, for example, develop a relationship with their “chemical(s) of choice” – a relationship that takes precedence over any and all other aspects of their lives. Addicts find they need drugs merely to feel normal. In Internet addiction, a parallel situation exists. The Internet – like food or drugs in other addictions – provides the “high” and addicts become dependent on this cyberspace high to feel normal. They substitute unhealthy relationships for healthy ones. They opt for temporary pleasure rather than the deeper qualities of “normal” intimate relationships. Internet addiction follows the same progressive nature of other addictions. Internet addicts struggle to control their behaviors, and experience despair over their constant failure to do so. Their loss of self-esteem grows, fueling the need to escape even further into their addictive behaviors. A sense of powerlessness pervades the lives of addicts.

5. What are the types of Internet Addiction?
Cybersex and cyberporn addiction is the most common form of Internet addiction. The widespread availability of sexual content online has given rise to a new form of sexual addiction as almost 60% of the cases of online sexual compulsivity seen result exclusively from Internet use. New problems related to online affairs have also emerged as a sub-type of Internet abuse given the widespread popularity of interactive online applications such as chat rooms and instant messaging leading to surprising new trends in divorce and marital separation. Finally addictions to eBay, online gambling, and multi-user role-playing online games are growing new forms of Internet abuse. For more information, you can also read our article on Compulsive Surfing.

6. Do men and women differ in what they become addicted to?
Gender influences the types of applications and underlying reasons for Internet addiction. Men tend to seek out dominance and sexual fantasy online, while women seek out close friendships, romantic partners, and prefer anonymous communication in which to hide their appearance. Men are more likely to become addicted to online games, cyberporn, and online gambling, while women are more likely to become addicted to chatting, instant messaging, eBay, and online shopping. It seems to be a natural conclusion that attributes of gender played out in cyberspace parallel the stereotypes men and women have in our society.

ebay is heroin

After extensive testing, I've found out you can't smoke the internet. I called up cox communications and bitched them out, only to find out that I'd been put on hold. I haven't lost hope though, nope! Luck have it there's a group of supermen working on a bowl that is actually connected to a coaxial cable. Don't ask about phone lines. Nobody is waiting on dial up. Nobody.

Phantom Penguin
Its like being addicted to say…running. Theres no chemical addiction, just mental.

Those people have weak minds.

agreed.

and the sad thing, there is proably people who's addicted to running…
like those adults who gets up at like 5:30-6:00 am just so that they can go jogging around thier neighborhood block…thier days aren't just complete without it, they HAVE to do that before they go to work, before they go make breakfast for thier children, etc…. if they even miss one day of jogging they kinda spaz out.
something to do with the body's chemical relases when people gives thier bodies an workout that kinda pushes it to the limits.

anyway I think those people are proably having a sereve case of needing something to escape into from thier reality.. that's why this bizzare case of addiction.

most cases of addictions usually have the people having something they need to escape from…needing to feel relaxed and stuff from thier stresses, etc.

lol I took that net addiction quiz.
It said:
“You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.”

Hahaha, Wow. Yes, I do go on the internet to feel normal. But that's mainly ‘cause sometimes I need to go online and get a second opinion on something to see if I’m insane or a genius, there's a thin line between the two. Or sometimes I wonder if other people are as pissed off about something trivial as I am. So far, I'm no more abnormal than anyone else, as far as I've seen. =O

And addiction to internet porn? Shoulda' came out with clinics for that years ago before I started devoting gigs of my hard drive to the stuff. XD

Personally, I can't see how people can get THAT addicted to the internet. I mean, I've been to that point before, For like… A year or two when I was a kid. Then the novelty of chatting anonymously wore out and I figured out that just ‘cause it’s the internet doesn't make it exciting. To me, The internet and PC's in general are like a swiss army knife on your belt. The tools inside can let you do all sorts of tasks with one item, and it's fun to use when it has a use, But it's just a swiss army knife. Maybe if you don't have the money, intelligence or patience to find other entertainment, it can be fun. But just ‘cause you own one doesn’t mean you have to learn Ninja Knife-Throwing Techniques and hunt for bottles you can open with the can opener. Go learn an instrument or something if you're really swimming in your own free-time. ^^;