Outside Beijing, a Military-style Bootcamp For "Internet Addiction" 91
Press2ToContinue writes Last year, China recognized internet addiction as an official disorder. Since then, over 6,000 patients have submitted themselves for treatment, after some spent up to 14 hours a day online. And as these amazing pictures show, dealing with it is serious. The Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment Centre (IATC) is a military-style bootcamp nestled in the suburbs of Bejing. The young men that enter its doors are subjected to a strict military regime of exercise, medication and solitary confinement. Any kind of electronic gadgetry is completely banned. Additionally, patients are frequently subjected to psychiatric assessments and brain scans to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow. And the concept is gaining steam; the first Internet Congress on Internet Addiction Disorders was held in Milan in early 2014. Despite its recent official classification, Is internet addiction a real disorder? Or is it a red herring masking depression and escapism? And to make things more indeterminate, Isn't more and more time online the inevitable future?
Well (Score:1)
There's a lot to escape and be depressed about.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
That is certainly true, and you do not even need to be in China for that. Most smart, perceptive people will develop an intense dislike for the way this installment of the human race is behaving in short order.
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Someone please help me. I can't stop reading and posting to Slashdot!
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Someone please help me. I can't stop reading and posting to Slashdot!
That's not internet addiction, that's masochism. Totally different disorder.
Obese called the Internet router disabling cruel (Score:2)
But no, the target customers thought removing the Internet connection or television was not a funny game at all [reddit.com].
instead it would be so "terrible",... and customers would happen to be forced to "disable", "remove", "destroy" etc. the thing..., because they don't need a baby sitter... because they are so damn good in losing weight. Maybe, China is arranging some kind of h
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The sky is falling (Score:1)
ChiComs (Score:2)
I'm sure the ChiComs have many behaviors they consider a "disorder" and can get you a one way ticket to the re-education camps.
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Who are "YOU FOLKS"? Do you know which nationality sydocon is? Does he own a horse and go Yeehaw! while roping cattle?
And just what the fuck does any of that have to do with Chinese government abuses of its population?
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Anything with a rewarding stimulus can become an addiction. But only a in a subgroup of people whose brains seriously screw up and over-react to the positive stimulus. It's more of an addiction spectrum than a switch, but there are people who are genuinely addicted to the internet (or online games, since the internet is really too broad a category; cue stories about Koreans playing until they die).
I don't know whether or not most people who go to this camp are seriously addicted. I'm sure there are a few, b
Addiction is not a red herring (Score:2)
"Internet" addiction is scapegoating the medium.
It is Bullshit, IMO (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day when I was a pupil I had "library addiction" for several years. I spent most of my free time in the library reading books. I event took a lot of books with me to read somewhere else. It was a fascinating experience with all the knowledge in there. Nobody in their right mind would have thought it was a problem. This "Internet addiction" is not different in any way I can see.
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And you the one where people were reading 14 hours a day.
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Humans do need a serious amount of social interaction or they eventually become sick.
That's why Internet porns are so popular.
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Gaming at its worst is no worse than the same unmotivated person reading a book
Heavy reading of non-graphic material is strongly correlated with lots of positive cognitive ability development, and it's almost independent of the type of book, though a variety is best. There can also be a great deal of value in gaming, but it depends heavily on the nature of the game. Most of the games people play for 14 hours per day are highly repetitive electronic Skinner boxes, and as far as I've seen there is no evidence of significant benefit from their play. Other than enjoyment, of course, which
Re:It is Bullshit, IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the day when I was a pupil I had "library addiction" for several years. I spent most of my free time in the library reading books.
If you were reading books, that's completely different.
However, if you had been going to the library to stare at the same page of your year book day after day pining over a classmate you had a crush on, or going to the library only to hide behind a bookshelf staring at your crush while she's studying with her boyfriend, that would be a closer analogue to what people do on the internet nowadays.
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I don't know what you do on the Internet, but what I do is often pretty close to reading books.
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Except 'online gaming' is far from useless. I use it(along with regular gaming) as part of my pain management under the recommendation of my neurologist and pain specialist. It helps reduce the amount of addicting narcotics I need to take, which in my book is a good thing. The reality is, some people can have a problem with anything. I rank 'internet addiction' far below actual social/societal problems in terms of things that should be looked at. You know, like poverty, substance abuse, general run of
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Do you spend every waking minute playing, to the exclusion of all productive activity?
That would imply I work, and am not retired already. There's a difference right?
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Do you spend every waking minute playing, to the exclusion of all productive activity?
That would imply I work, and am not retired already. There's a difference right?
Productive activity and retirement are not mutually exclusive.
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Productive activity and retirement are not mutually exclusive.
Really? I guess I should just throw my FOSS projects into the garbage bin then.
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Productive activity and retirement are not mutually exclusive.
Really? I guess I should just throw my FOSS projects into the garbage bin then.
I think you missed the "not" in my sentence.
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Apparently. That's what narcotic pain medication gets ya, tiredness coupled with missing words in sentences.
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Yeah, but how many of those books were comics about cats?
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Except reading books is much harder (mental energy-wise) compared to browsing internet forums like facebook, slashdot, reddit etc. The latter are like junk food or vegging in front of TV, whereas reading real books is more like eating wholesom
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have a girlfriend
Great advice. I thought that was part of the problem. I know a guy from China and he says that girls are in very short supply in some parts. Judging by the escort adverts in the UK, a lot of them have come here.
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answers: (Score:2)
Yes. Any activity performed in such a way that it inhibits a person or makes them unhappy can become a disorder, a very real disorder. The exact behaviour is not relevant. It could be counting your steps - people do it obssessively and it gets in the way of their lives and makes their lives difficult - then its a disorder.
2. Or is it a red herring masking depression and escapism?
It can be. It can also be an OCD of its own
Re:answers: (Score:5, Insightful)
If anything, this gets scapegoated by many people because it does not fit the old norms of human society. If those same youths were obsessively studying for schoolwork all day long, it would not elicit nearly the same reaction. If they spent their entire day socializing with friends in person, would anyone be surprised?
As for the definition of online versus offline, that's a somewhat tricky distinction to make. It would be safer to say that in an increasingly connected world it will be harder to find anything that is "completely offline" unless you specifically seek it out - but, again, it's not like there's some ethernet port in my body that I plug a cable into that's delivering euphoric sensations I'm addicted to.
Re:answers: (Score:5, Insightful)
First, your statement "there is no inherent chemical dependency involved any more than with any other activity", although prima facie true, as the neurological basis of psychological habituation is fairly-well understood and the same mechanisms are involved. However, this facile statement hides the fact that people become psychologically habituated to certain activities to varying degrees - saying that the mechanism is the same simplifies OCD into nail biting, even though treatment in each case would be completely different.
Second, this disregard of severity of psychological habituation (I'll call it PH for brevity from here on out) seems to be matched by a notion that a communication medium has no bearing on how well material delivered through that medium can reinforce behavior, leading to astonishing statement "people think that adding a computer into the equation makes it magically different"! This is astonishing mainly because by trying to be sarcastic, you've actually stumbled upon the truth: Different mediums for reinforcement DO lead to different levels of reinforcement. Each medium provides a different experience - aesthetic experience, information content, activity levels, etc., etc., etc. In fact, it would be pretty fucking amazing if a new communications medium did not reinforce particular behaviors very well.
Finally, it's odd that you see the internet as a neutral distribution medium. The atomized and fragmented nature of the internet makes it a lovely market for short, facile responses such as yours. It eschews long form thought and substitutes trope. In many ways, twitch response is a perfect metaphor for the internet - all reaction, no thought. And FPS games take this to a new level - all reaction, no thought, pretty much all the time. It is no surprise that you come to the defence of games as it is a perfect avatar for you. Your inability to achieve even shallow thought, coupled with nothing but sarcasm and a few common rhetorical tricks are the perfect prestidigitation for our commonly awful internet age. I fully expect to see you up-modded here.
P.S. I normally don't swat at flies. But in this case, you gamesters are all swarming around a decaying corpse that you helped devour. Get the fuck out of the way so smart people can perform an autopsy.
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Actually, I don't give a rat's ass about games, just the antisocial tendencies they seem to encourage among some of their devotees - it's not the game, it's the asshattery. And as long as the asshats of gaming band together and are a problem for the rest of the web, I'm sure your fellow non-asshat gamers will eventually isolate you as well. Have a good time playing with each other, you little homoerotic man boys.
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Actually, I don't give a rat's ass about games, just the antisocial tendencies they seem to encourage among some of their devotees - it's not the game, it's the asshattery. And as long as the asshats of gaming band together and are a problem for the rest of the web, I'm sure your fellow non-asshat gamers will eventually isolate you as well. Have a good time playing with each other, you little homoerotic man boys.
Yes, this! I hate American football too!
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A
I should go on hiding... (Score:2)
Because I would have been executed a long ago as a serious repeated offender...
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What? You don't say, teenagers don't willingly and joyfully trade online gaming for being subjected to idiots in a bootcamp?
Anyone thinking that any of those people are there willingly should probably think again.
"psychologically" resisting Government pap (Score:2)
that's what the Chinese are "protecting their ill citizens" from. the name on the top of the form changes, but it's always "you don't believe our crap, so you are nuts."
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it is not a bootcamp to cure people of internet addition, it is most definitely a 'reeducation' program. those with the 'addiction' are those most likely to be able to circumvent the great firewall and speak out about oppression and censorship... this is the chinese government's way of dealing with them in a manner that appears to the outside world to be 'a good thing'
Meanwhile in the US... (Score:2)
We give kindergardeners smartphones and tablets as the new babysitter while convincing ourselves that this will make them more competitive with the foreigners. Obviously, it MUST be the smartphones/tablets which make them better at math and science...
The C64 (Score:1)
Was much more useful to mankind because it came with a Basic interpreter waiting for the kid in front of it. Plus a real keyboard. You could write a small program to calculate your math and physics homework and thereby learn a useful skill for your adult life. You could enlighten yourself to the utility of computers for mankind.
Compare that to the android crap, which is made for consumption, not for creation.
OK (Score:1)
I spend 12 hours a day or more on the computer, (work + hobbies) but it's a relief to go up to the mountains for a few days and not have anything around.
Addicted? Maybe.
"Isn't more and more time online the inevitable future?"
I believe it is, however I believe that it will become more "transparent", we will be online but the way we do it will not keep us in one area, nor involve the use of a large gadget.
And the worst part? (Score:2)
They are all "diet privates".
I will pray for you (Score:2)
(I have asked my sister to share my story with you, I no longer use the internet.)
When the ambulance arrived I could barely move. Lying on the floor in my own excrement, spasms jerking my body this way and that, I was not well. Not well.
The doctors determined that I was near starvation and dehydrated. They filled me with fluids. But none of that explained why I was dehydrated. My dear sister had a hunch that was confirmed by the psychologist at the hospital. They conspired with others to put me in this plac
China's Web Junkies (Score:2)
There is a fine documentary on this subject called "China's Web Junkies".
All the young lads (they are all midteens) are put in these boot camps by their parents at great expense. They are not government re-education camps, there is no political angle to these kid's problems. Nor are they hackers of any kind.
The main point to realise is that they are not addicted to the internet as such but to online gaming in particular. And they really do seem to be addicts. Their bragging about regularly playing for 24 or
Steam (Score:2)
Stating that the "concept is gaining steam" immediately after mentioning how these people are being abused, is either purposely misleading, or poor editing. I'm not a grammar Nazi, but please stop with the click-bait, or you'll be losing more readers.
possibly more video games than internet (Score:2)
Heavy veido game use is an issue for some young men in the USA.
Difference Between Addiction & Compulsive Beha (Score:2)
The way the word "addiction" is thrown around debases its meaning. What is being talked about in most cases - shopping addiction, computer addiction, sex addiction, cocaine addiction - is really compulsive behavior. And what ends up happening, in practice, because of this, is that actual addiction, (such as to opiates), is treated the same as compulsive behavior. Or rather, vice-versa. The Chinese, at least, are appropriately treating this compulsive behavior with behavior modification.
I think it would bene