China Trials Summer Camp To Treat Young Web Addicts

Despite all the censorship, and even the threat of prison time (for some fairly outspoken bloggers), more and more Chinese can’t seem to help but spend more and more time on the Internet. The surge in Net-based activity on the mainland has even grabbed the attention of the national government in the past couple of years. The government has now gone so far as to classify excessive time spent before the screen an indication of addiction, and has proceeded to prescribe various remedies – some basic and quite sensible, some ridiculous – to condition the percentage of the populace entranced by the wonders of the Web to know when withdrawal from the virtual world is necessary.

The government’s most recent initiative to combat Internet addiction is an “experimental” summer camp currently being trialed on 40 youngsters, where they are “treated for depression, fear, unwillingness to interact with others, panic, and agitation.” If deemed effective, the camp will be one of the options approved for the 13% (and growing) of the roughly 20 million netizens in China under the age of 18 seduced by PCs to the point of mental deterioration.

Or something to that effect. While I believe it’s possible to become so enthralled with the possibilities availed by the Internet and so dependent on its multitudinous utilities that they become an absolute necessity and a kind of “security blanket” rather than an option or a luxury, there’s still the discrepancy between a fixation and an addiction that one should shine light upon, particularly in this moment of alarmism on the mainland.

We should (and, more importantly, the Chinese government should as well) look at China’s rapid growth of technological infrastructure and all the trappings that come with the expansion of such a network not as a something to be alarmed about or even scrutinize very closely. The country is in the midst of an era of massive industrial boom (not the first time it’s grown in such a momentous way, mind you), and it’s experiencing broadband at precisely the same time it’s experiencing…well, everything else, really. It seems only natural to find citizens of the PRC engorging themselves on the digital landscape that’s very new and still very exciting to many of them.

It’s human to be curious, after all, and when one finds great interest in something – which is definitely the case with Internet use nowadays all around the globe – one tends to gravitate strongly to it. While the West never saw an onslaught of Internet activity 10 to 20 years ago, due in large part to the absence of relatively inexpensive high-speed connections and the lack of powerful Web apps and such (the kind we see everywhere on the Net today), societies in those locations nonetheless were found grappling with the idea of an ever-present, always-on world being built alongside the physical one. Talk of addiction lingered then as well.

China will pass through this phase of trepidation soon enough. Dare I say even more quickly than we who sprang onto the Web during the time 28-56k dial-up modems became popularized? It’ll learn to use its connection to the Internet for the benefit of the national economy, for the enhancement of education, and, yes, to supplement real-world social activity.

It’s only recently been flooded with bits from the world throughout. It seems like the Chinese are simply trying to catch up and play the game. In many cases, literally.