China’s Internet Addiction

According to Daniel Griffiths, of BBC News, Beijing, the number of Internet addicts is increasing in China; huge numbers of young people hang out at Internet cafés on a daily basis to chat online or play games. People have started spending their money on buying computers or paying to use Internet websites; that is a negative side in this huge country. Wang Yiming, 21, said that he could not sleep enough, eat well, or pass some of his school tests when he started Internet addiction; he couldn’t control himself and had fallen away from his family and friends. For that reason there is China’s first clinic for Internet addiction to help people; that clinic is one of a group of clinics serving other kinds of addiction such as drugs or alcohol. The number of patients is always increasing; 20 million patients every day. That makes the clinic add 200 beds next year, trying to stop the Internet addiction.

Internet addiction is in fact a large problem these days; and it is difficult to be treated easily forit. After a person is addicted his personality will completely change, psychologically and in his social life; he will be less talkative, more lonely, and more hostile and sometimes it leads to family breakups. Even health complaints from many people have taken place such as bleary-eyed, spinal pain, headache and other pains. This is caused by sitting too long in front of the computer and less exercise and even normal movement . Dr Tao Ran mentioned in the article that most addictions come from young teenagers, about 2 million have been addicted in a such quick time that the authorities did not realize the problem until recently and too late.

This Internet addiction is the family’s responsibility. Since most of the addicts are teenagers, they started going and using the internet, playing games and logging into chat rooms when they were younger. Parents have to limit Internet use for their children and make control of their Internet surfing to avoid any internet addiction. They should fill their children’s free time with useful things such as reading or sports or going on a trip with family and some friends; and try to discover any talents they could have to start maintaining and growing it for their future.

The good thing is the Internet clinic; it’s very helpful for the advanced level of addiction; if the parents can’t control their children or get them away from addiction, they can take them to the clinic to remove this addiction, and put them back in to a quiet life; in addition they should be around them all the time and be attentive to their behavior.




Reference
Griffiths, D. (2005, Oct. 10). Treating China’s Online Addicts.
BBC Newspaper
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2.hi/asia-pacific/4327258.stm