Inside A Korean Rehab Camp For Web Addiction

caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has a story about a Korean kids' camp for 'curing' Internet addiction. 'Seventeen hours a day online is fine,' said one such kid at the camp. From the article: 'Drill instructors drive young men through military-style obstacle courses, counselors lead group sessions, and there are even therapeutic workshops on pottery and drumming ... this year, the camp held its first two 12-day sessions, with 16 to 18 male participants each time. (South Korean researchers say an overwhelming majority of compulsive computer users are male.)'"

addiction

[timmarhy]

addiction is a driving force in humans, you never get rid of addiction you just replace it with something less destructive.... i mean lets face it these kids COULD be addicted to crack instead. i think computers are a pretty healthy outlet for such personalities.

Re:addiction

[The MAZZTer]

Healthy in comparison to cocaine, sure... but there are other things in life besides computers! Jobs, friends (and I mean as in real, social, face-to-face interaction, online friends can't count for that), school, exercise, and a whole lot more... if you're on the computer all the time you can't do any of these other things!

Well OK SOME of those things you can do but it's not the same as more traditional methods anyways, especially as far as social interaction is concerned. And don't even TRY to say you can eat properly and exercise without leaving your computer.

Different from Vacation?

[ZeroNullVoid]

The only difference from this and going on a true vacation, is on a true vacation you usually are relaxed and get to enjoy life. With the rehab camp, it sounds like you will hate life and yourself. Vacations involve technology such as computers. True vacations may include conveniences, but should contain a void of computers, cell phones, or any other wide-scale communication device. You can have them, but only use them during extremes. Just my thoughts, although I do not feel I have had a true vacation since I was a child, and even then, I spent a lot of time trying to communicate in a global sense...

Re:so? what else is there to do?

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

You have a great point. People might actually listen, if you stop ranting for a second and say your views in a clear, concise manner.

That being said, I don't believe you deserve a negative score. I was forced to stop and think for a second.

Re:should be an easy job.

[wizardforce]

The camps job should be pretty easy. Just provide the internet addicts with girlfriends.

Of course once she finds a way to escape, the addiction will be back... A lot of people who are "addicted" to the internet don't really have any alternatives that they consider better than browsing the web except of course, finding people that understand them in real life. They'd do just as well fixing the problem by finding friends for addicts if nothing other than to hang out with and actually do something in real life. I mean heck, most would probably settle for other geeks like them with similar problems [internet addiction for one?] and it doesn't need to be in some technology-free camp either. All they need to do is find something new that is fun to do, there's a lot to choose from.

Re:so? what else is there to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, I would like to say that i liked your post.
However, while i agree with you about "real" life, I have to ask, computer games? For fuck's sake, 99% of them make you feel good because of a small sensory prize they give you for completing some task. You object to the limitations of the five senses, yet games are the greatest example of such, the fact that most games today try to improve their graphics rather than gameplay signifies my point. I mean, take your average strategy game, a simple set of rules, and the prize is in the form of some pretty graphics of your armies, chess also satisfies that description, is pretty complex and somehow i think it is less popular than most strategy games. I should also say that the "real" life game thingy gives much better sensory prizes (and I heard if you are really good at it you even get that thing they had in "Hot Coffee", but in a much higher resolution). If you want something that's more challenging/deep, well, if you are into computers there's that "game" in "real"-life called "sysadmin", believe me, that's a real challenging one, and you get cool prizes for it too ($$$). I can understand that maybe if you are a speedrunner or one of those guys who play games in order to perfect them, gaming would feel like something very deep, but most of the time it really isn't deep enough to fill an entire life.

Re:addiction

[Hognoxious]

Is life really a series of addictions?

Not at all. However it's a superficially profound sounding statement that's likely to get modded up by shallow emo wasters.

Treat the symptom, ignore the disease

[Opportunist]

As usual with addictions.

Folks, people don't get addicted because it's funny. People don't shoot heroin into their veins because it's such a swell feeling. Neither do people spend 24/7 on the internet because it's their kick.

In either case people get addicted because it's an escape from something. And unless that something is solved, they will eventually end up where they are now. You have to replace that addiction with something sensible. Now, what does that bootcamp offer? Drill sergeants and getting a kick in the nuts? Yeah, that's something I wouldn't wanna escape from.

Now, internet addiction is probably more of a problem than heroin addiction. Especially when it becomes a widespread phenomenon amongst youths. Generally, it means that there's not something wrong with them but with the world around them. My money would be on insane pressure to perform.

But to change that, we'd probably have to change society. And ... well, it's easier to just stuff those kids into boot camps. No solution, but gives us that fuzzy warm feeling we're "doing something".

Re:addiction

[Dunbal]

As a physician I am well aware of the textbook definition of "addiction".

      However this is one of those terms that eventually will be modified, as it has turned into a "label" and fails to identify the psychological conditions that usually drive "addiction" and addictive behaviour - anxiety disorder, depression, and bipolar mood disorder. "Addiction" is a symptom, not a pathology. Not everyone who smokes crack or shoots heroin or goes online becomes an instant "addict". Like everything else in medicine, pathology usually requires several predisposing factors.

      My bending the term "addiction" to include common, every day acts (which happen to stimulate the same pathways in the brain) was an attempt to ridicule this "label". Just as we no longer say that patients are "retarded", soon the term "addict" will be used less frequently among health professionals.

Re:Treat the symptom, ignore the disease

[ceoyoyo]

Actually I rather thought people shot up heroin because it DOES feel good.

People get addicted to things for several different reasons. Some things (like heroin) are physically addictive. If you take someone with a completely fulfilling life and give them heroin or any of a number of other drugs including caffeine and nicotine, they'll get addicted.

Other addictions are psychological. That doesn't mean they're necessarily escaping from something. Exercise has some wonderful effects, including making you feel better, increasing your self esteem, making you less prone to addiction and reducing stress.

Reality isn't quite the black and white you paint it as.

Re:addiction

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Some of us prefer the lack of that stuff though, not everyone works the same.

Plus you put it like Autistic people can't be good friends as it's a similar thing in many ways.

Do they really understand what they've labeled?

[darCness]

Ok, the headline says "web" addiction, but is that really accurate? The people who are addicted, what do they actually do online?

Read? Watch videos? Listen to music? Play games? Ok, let's say they spend 12 hours a day doing these things.

4 hours reading web sites
2 hours watching videos on Youtube
4 hours playing Counterstrike
2 hours listening to streaming music

Now, let's get rid of the Internet and say they did this instead:

4 hours reading books
2 hours watching a DVD
4 hours playing checkers
2 hours listening to a victrola

Hey, are they "real life" addicted now?

What if I went inside and outside my apartment to do things. Am I now addicted to doors? No, the doors give me a a way to get to places where I can do "stuff" I want/need to do.

Addicted to the Internet? How about "doing things they enjoy/have to do"? The Internet is not the "target". It's what it allows you to do. If all the Internet had was the WWW (nothing but HTTP servers), and they all contained web pages filled with the word "monkey", there would be no "Internet addiction".

It's a means to an end; it is not an end unto itself.

Now, if you want to argue that people are addicted to some individual thing that you just happen to be able to do on the Internet, fine. Game addiction, "chatting" addiction, "reading" addiction, OK. There's a reason it's called "nicotine" addiction and not "cigarette" addiction. Means != ends.

The label is stupid.