Obsessed with the internet: Chinese history

I think that I will be right in 80% of cases if I declare that every child born in the era of the formation and development of computer games, somehow played in them. Someone played infrequently, preferring football battles, while others swore to their parents, begging for a little more playing time. And for sure, many have heard, or even by their example, seen how a computer in a family becomes the subject of endless scandals and family squabbles.
“Just a couple of hours to play WoW / LineAge / EVE / GW, let the institute wait, because there is such an interesting raid / quest / etc.” - a familiar situation, isn't it?
And what should the parents of those children who just die for the monitors, who ruin their lives, plunging into the digital world completely? How to regulate these relationships when educational methods no longer help? These questions were asked by a single Chinese family when their son began to spend more time in the other world than in the present. About this family and the boy named Deng Senshan and will be discussed in this article.
The harsh drama of modernity - Internet addiction - will appear in this article in full measure on the example of Chinese society, the most numerous and most affected by this ailment.


One hot August afternoon, mother, father and son got into the car and drove to Tsihan health camp, located in rural China. The camp was only half an hour from their hotel in Nanning, but the road for Deng Fei and Zhou Juan seemed much longer. Their son, Deng Senshan, who was sitting in the back seat, didn’t say a word all the way. The unfinished buildings, warehouses and fields of the southern Chinese province of Guangxi swept past, with a painful grimace on his face. He did not want to camp - who would? - but his parents felt that there was simply no other way.

The camp in Tsihan promised to treat children from the so-called Internet addiction, the disease that has become the most dangerous disease of the Chinese population . The advertising brochure stated that about 80% of China’s young population suffered from this addiction. Fifteen-year-old Deng Senshan seemed to be one of them. At one time he was the best student, but over the past two years, his academic performance has plummeted, he practically ceased to study. He spent most of his time playing World of Warcraft in an internet cafe or at home. The Chinese news publication was filled with stories of WoW-crazy kids who died and killed their parents. Parents were terribly frightened by the fact that a techno-demon, about which they know nothing, can take possession of their only son. Therefore, they succumbed to the belief that the camp could put an end to this "bad behavior."
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When the institution was fully presented before the eyes of the father, it turned out to be not such a typical school structure as he imagined it. On the contrary, it looked like a neglected prison - a decrepit three-story building, bars on the windows, neglected bushes. In the distance, across a field of high and sharp grass, the tobacco factory chadila. On the basketball court, teenagers in camouflage uniform were training in the subtropical heat. The tutors watched them in black shirts with chevrons of the military militia.

The family got out of the car. It was about one in the afternoon. "I do not want to stay here," Deng Senshan pleaded. Father suppressed a bit of uncertainty, looking at his son. “It will be useful for you,” he promised. "In a month you will come out strong and healthy." Mother joked that he would even lightly burn. She also hid her fear for her son. At one point, the mother walked away with the tutor and asked why the camp is so far away, and why are children forced to train in such unbearable heat? “At home, the children are in too comfortable a situation,” he replied, and said that the ordeals are part of a healing program. “You don't beat children, do you?” She asked. The man declined to answer, assuring her, "Here we use only psychological methods."

They did not even say goodbye. Mother and father will always remember that they did not say goodbye properly. The parents paid about 7,000 yuan (about $ 1,000) for the month of treatment, then they watched as the son was taken to the room behind the basketball court. Camp staff advised parents to leave. It would be better for his treatment, they said. When they left the mother could not help but look at her son. Through the doorway, she saw her son sit in a chair with his head down. “He looked so distressed,” she recalls. If he looked at me and whispered “take me”, I would take it. But he did not raise his head.

The Internet, as you know, is a destructive machine that cannot be stopped - changing any business model, social institutions and norms with just one touch. For the Chinese society, the damage done by the Internet was enormous. The number of Internet users has soared from 620,000 to 338 million over the past 12 years, making China the largest and fastest growing online community. And while China was developing new horizons, connecting 700,000 users each month, the government attempted to gain control over the Internet. It erected the famous “Chinese Firewall” , selectively blocking access to Google, YouTube and Twitter. A Web police force was created to investigate and prevent radical moods on the network. The government hired a group of “secret web commentators” who posted complimentary comments on the Chinese regime. And in July, the development of Green Dam Youth Escort , a program that dealt with censoring and control, began and was installed on all new computers.

But, as soon as China became richer, and the younger generation began to master the devices of the digital age, the Internet turned into an uncontrollable force. Signs of his influence are found everywhere: in large hangars, round-the-clock Internet clubs, where hundreds of teenagers sat in headphones for hours in front of monitors; at qq.com, a tangled social network, a popular instant messaging platform in China with more than 480 million IM accounts; and in the explosive growth of spyware that helps to bypass the firewall. Parents have always been concerned about the influence of adolescent culture, whether it be comics, rock and roll or video games. But in a tough, competitive Chinese society, the explosion of the Internet represents more than disciplinary discontent. It is viewed as a real threat. And this explains why the treatment of children from Internet addiction has become a national insanity.



The horrific stories that began to appear in newspapers in 2002 only added fuel to the fire: A fire in an illegal Internet café claimed the lives of 25 people who bought a subscription for the night; a player in the Legend of Mir 2 died after 20 hours of continuous play in the internet club; two children from Chongqing, tired after a two-day game, got hit by a train , crossing railway tracks; a boy from Qingyuan killed his father because of disagreements in using the Internet; A 13-year-old teenager from Tianjin, after completing his 36-hour gameplay, jumped off the roof of a 24-story building, hoping to “join the heroes of the game,” as was written in one newspaper, based on his suicide note.

The Chinese government responded quickly and violently. Teenagers were officially forbidden to visit Internet cafes, the law was periodically checked with the help of police raids. The government also stopped issuing licenses to new Internet clubs and revoked many previously issued licenses — 160,000 in 2004. After 3 years, the government began recommending game manufacturers to build in “limiters” that would prevent them from playing for more than 3 hours. A year later, the question of the official definition of Internet addiction as a clinical deviation was raised. But the most notable government initiative was the creation of health camps.

The Beijing Central Military Hospital established the first rehabilitation center in the country at its base in 2004. It was the brainchild of Tao Jan, a military researcher and colonel of the People’s Liberation Army of China. A vein with a lively face, who became famous for his treatment of drug addicts, Tao opened his camp on the outskirts of the city in a military building. The center, which consists of physiotherapists, psychologists and physicians, has cured more than 5,000 people today, most of whom are teenagers.

Tao camp showed tremendous success and was awarded international recognition. (In 2007, Reuters described it as the “front of the Chinese war” ). The appearance of similar centers throughout Asia — in South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam — was not long in coming.

Even American doctors began to show attention to Internet addiction. In 2006, a study by Stanford University revealed that one in eight adolescents has symptoms of web addiction. In 2008, Gerald Block, an Oregon physiotherapist, put forward a proposal in his article in the American Journal of Psychiatrists that Internet addiction should be included in the next issue of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness, a kind of bible for mental disorders. “Despite cultural differences,” he writes, “our symptoms are incredibly similar to those observed by our Asian colleagues, which means we seem to be dealing with the same deviation.” In July, a Washington State attorney named Hilary Cash opened a reStart , the first Internet addiction treatment center in the United States. “China is in a winning position because they are taking action,” she says, “and we are not.”

Deng Senshan's family lives in a luxurious 4-room apartment in the center of Ziyuan - a province with a population of about 70,000 people adjacent to the Vietnamese border, surrounded by rivers and bamboo thickets. The son began to play online games in 11 years. At first, he played simply in the intervals between swimming in one of the ponds or dreams of becoming the next Yao Ming (center NBA). He was a quiet black-haired boy, in glasses and with excellent performance, which his parents were so proud of.

Everything turned upside down at the age of 13, when he plunged into the world of WoW and other online games. He spent all his free time at the computer at home or in countless urban Internet cafes. Sometimes he did not eat or sleep. Once he just disappeared, without explaining anything to his parents. "In the evening I will go look for him," said the father. "A few hours later I found him in one of the Internet clubs."

Deng Senshan began to gain weight, and his grades slid down - such changes should worry any parents, but especially Chinese ones, since low academic performance can eliminate the opportunity to get into a prestigious university. Parents tried to distract him, taking the computer to his room, restricting access to it. Bought him a treadmill. But nothing helped. “We were constantly fighting,” says the mother.

Deng Senshan's parents could not understand whether their son was addicted, or if it was just an age-related phenomenon, such as when guys fall for girls or on a TV show. Maybe in this way their son simply relieved the stress gained in school. They still did not take that step ...

One evening my father saw an advertisement for the Tsihan camp on TV. In the commercial they showed a smiling family. The establishment looked decent, even encouraging. And everything seemed so safe; advertising was on the state channel, giving more formality. The next day, the father offered his son to visit the camp, naturally Deng Senshan did not like the idea at all. But my father did not want to give up so easily. When the school year ended, the father secretly called the camp and asked for a place for his son. They replied, "Come, we will take care of him." Said the father.

A couple of weeks later, my father took the whole family to the beach on their last day off. Sitting in the sand, he watched his son swim in the sea. When Deng Senshan swam up to a woman floundering in the waves and dragged her back to the shallow water, the boy's father became overwhelmed with pride: his son was a hero. Mom took a picture of Deng Senshan, his hair was still wet from the water, a blue towel was thrown over his shoulders, a stoic expression on his face — he still doesn’t know that he will be sent to the camp tomorrow. But in the evening the news was announced. “It will help you,” his father assured.

One of the signs that the management of rehabilitation centers was out of control was the appearance of Uncle Jan's ambulance. Yang Yongxing is a psychiatrist who opened a hospital in a public hospital in eastern Shandong province in 2006. His camp was one of hundreds of newly formed in China - most of which opened unauthorized and used dubious methods of treatment: antidepressants, psychiatric counseling, even physical effects. (Once, a young patient was forced to run 528 miles through Inner Mongolia.) What began as a well-planned and authorized event resulted in a huge industry run by illiterate entrepreneurs.

In Yang's arsenal, there were treatments like shock therapy — also known as “xing nao” or “brain awakening.” The electrodes were connected to the hands and temples of the patient, and then the discharges from 1 to 5 mA were passed through his body. One girl remembers how she had to insert a mouth guard in her mouth so as not to bite her tongue. Some procedures lasted for an hour and a half; unfortunately the shock therapy left burns. In an interview with a local newspaper, Yang defended this practice: “It does not harm the brain. But it hurts, it hurts a lot! ”

Yang was not a physiotherapist, did not have a license to use electric shock. But he didn't care. He declared that he knew what he was doing. “It clears the mind,” he declared. He earned about $ 900 a month - a significant amount for a country where the average earnings are at $ 400. But 3,000 desperate families still sent their children to 4-month procedures. The media called Yang a “national expert on web addiction” , listing his heroic stories about the beautiful life in his recreation center. Even after his methods were recognized as too cruel - in July, responsible people banned the use of electroshock for treating Internet addiction, explaining that the need for its use needs to be justified - his services were still in demand.

Meanwhile, discussions around Internet addiction have become even more hysterical: The network not only ruined the lives of adolescents, but also became a threat to national security. In 2006 The central committee of the youth communist party openly expressed irritation with “certain social problems that put China’s future under attack” and called Internet café a “hotbed of young murderers and libertines.” Officials said the Internet is responsible for 80% of school deaths and most youth killings. The show on the state channel describes the fight against Internet addiction as the Third Opium War.

It seemed that everything could be written off on the Internet. For example, in September, the deputy director of the Chinese Volleyball Administration said that the mediocre game of the women's team was caused by "too long sitting on the Internet . "

Even the founding father of the Tao Ran camps was worried about the excessive panic of the population. “My parents call me, who suspect the Internet dependence of his child even when he just sits in front of the monitor,” he says. "The Internet addiction is paying excessive attention, and every day more and more." He is not alone in his concern. “I told the officials, you need to stop this,” says Tao Hongkai, a teacher at the Pedagogical University of Central China. He believes that treatment of dependent adolescents should be carried out with the help of possibly long conversations. “Parents throw out a lot of money for camps for their children,” he comments. “I told the government that the situation would ever get out of control, but they didn’t respond.”

The Tsihan health camp opened in May 2009, right before the summer holidays. Children who have been treated in this camp describe it as a terrible place. Although the camp was positioned as a therapeutic one, his treatment methods were based on military training, which began with a whistle at dawn and often ended well after midnight. The guys who could not run the required number of laps or do the right amount of push-ups were beaten. Screams were heard constantly. A 12-year-old boy, whose parents sent him to camp for spending too much time on his Game Boy, says that most of the time he just tried to survive: “If someone says that he wasn’t scared, he’s is lying. "

Deng Senshan's friends in the camp helped us recreate his first and only day in the Tsihan camp. Like all newcomers, the day began with a “prison cell” on the top floor of the building where he was told to turn his face to the wall. When he refused, the mentor hit him. “I heard him screaming,” says a 13-year-old girl, whose mother sent her to camp because her daughter started skipping school, for the sake of chat. “But I didn’t pay attention, because everyone is already accustomed to constant shouts.”

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Christopher S. Stewart.
Original