Blog #5
By: Kim Pham
Internet Addiction Camp
Imagine being taken away from home in a car out to a remote
area, to a compound that looks like a horror movie could have taken place
there, and dropped off. Well that is what parents in China are resorting to in
order to save their children from the disorder of Internet addiction. The
brochure for the camp states that 80% of China’s youth suffer from Internet
addiction. There are also numerous headlines in the news in China of children
hurting or killing their parents due to being restricted from the Internet. A majority
of these kids are addicted to the online game World of War Craft better
referred to as WOW.
One such kid is Deng Shenshan. His parents Deng Fei and Zhou Juan had to make
this hard decision to put him through this kind of boot camp. Deng’s mother was
so skeptical of the remote camp that she even asked if the kids were beaten and
why were they forced to be outside in the hot blazing sun for the majority of
the day. She was even going to take Deng home if he had turned around before
entering the camp and say to her, “get me out of here.” Deng’s parents had to
make this choice because they saw the signs and symptoms of Internet addiction
disorder when their son’s grades started to drop-off exponentially and he
stopped exercising all together. Clearly Deng was headed down the wrong path
with his addiction to WOW.
The camp cost parents $1,000USD per month and has been
proven to be effective. These facilities were first developed by Tao Ran, a
military researcher and colonel in the People’s Liberation Army. He has claimed
to treatment of over 5,000 campers and admits most of them are teenagers. The militant
style of therapy has become so popular that South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam
have all copy-cat the concept. The treatments consist of fusion therapy,
physical training, and medication.
If you had a child who is addicted to the Internet and it
became escalated to the level of endangerment, would you take such an action as
Deng’s parents?
Contributing sources:
I would most likely unplug the computer or depending on their age just not give them a computer. How old are these kids? Does youth refer to minorities(under 18), 12 or 8 year olds? That my change my opinion somewhat.
ReplyDeleteRegardless I think this is an interesting parallel to the rise of MMORPGs and games like Second Life. Being plugged in 24/7 will undoubtedly have effects both positive and negative.
I agree with Jacob I would just unplug the computer.If I deal with his or her addiction myself, I would save a 1000 dollars which will give me financial flexibility in dealing with the problem. If my kid had this problem, I would tell him if you stop using the Internet in an extensive way I'll give you a prize of 500 dollars for your effort. Believe it or not it worked on me when I was a kid, and then I became a moderate user. It's just seeing that you have the ability to use the Internet in a moderate way.
ReplyDeleteI think this camp is a great idea. We have so many children in the United States that spends their day staring at some sort of electronic screen. The amount of time a child wastes on any screen could be spent elsewhere. They could be outside playing with their friends, doing chores around the house, or doing their homework. Moreover, I believe children pick up things from these types of entertainment. We've heard stories about children shooting other children in schools. We do not know if these bad kids were already mentally unstable or they picked up these ideas from video games or movies. What we do know is that most of these shooting games are unhealthy and could influence or encourage kids to view life differently. They could view their surroundings negatively. The reason I believe this camp is a great idea is because it gets these kids out of the house. It teaches the kids discipline. It is a lot better than being idle in front of any screen. Also, what's $1000 for possibly saving someone's life?
ReplyDeleteI think that these camps could be helpful, but also i think that if parents stepped up and made a change they would also be able to save $12,000 a year. I blame the parents for internet addiction at a small age. I remember in the 90's when we got our first computer and we were 6-10 years old we all had a limit on the computer before we had to get off. If parents simply just flip the breaker off and shut down the computer the children would not be able to do something.Kids can only do as much as you let them do. I just wonder if children in China are worse then the United States or the same. Also do you guys think these camps could come to the United States?
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of the other comments, that the camp can definately be effective to the child. Nevertheless, the camp is not the only solution to this behavior. Parents are normally the authority and have to come up with rules of internet usage. I have my own experience. At a young age, my parents prohibited internet usage for certain times of the day, mostly at night. They didn't even make the trouble to argue with me, the internet simply was disconnected at certain times. They used a program for child protection of the internet which automatically disconnected the internet from my computer. There are various softwares out there with this capability, which I believe can be as effective as the camp, but in a simpler manner.
ReplyDelete