Chinese Government Offers Camp for Internet-Addicted Teens

Do you spend hours at a time surfing the Web? Or does your child spend most of his or her time online? The Chinese government has opened a new camp to help cure Chinese teenagers of their Internet addictions.

The Internet is becoming an important part of everyone's lives as it gives us easy access to information, games, and other features like shopping, and communication with others. In fact, there is so much the internet offers us that it can become highly addicting, and people all over the world are being drawn into this alluring "trap" to help us improve our lifestyle. Whether or not it is improving our lifestyle, there are also many factors that affect our lives.

Recently, China has released a 10-day program for 40 teenagers to young adults, ages 14 to 22, to help cure internet addiction reported the China Daily. According to the China Daily newspaper, The accepted clients will have to undergo a psychological test for evaluation of their condition. Internet addiction has quickly become a big problem for China as about 2.6 million of their 20 million internet users were addicts. The addicts will be treated at the camp as an experiment to see whether or not camps for addicts show any benefits to the addicts.

With over 113000 internet cafes and bars in China according to governmental statistics, internet and computers are only steps away from anyone, and definitely luring to any addict no matter where they are. Many youngsters in China are suffering from depression, and are unwilling to interact with others in person. The camp's main goal is to help the youngsters be treated for these symptoms, and concentrate in their school tasks instead of skipping class, and avoiding friends to play online games or just go online. It supposedly will help the kids get their lives back on track.

Internet addiction camp is just one of the options for addicts. The China Daily pointed out there many different therapies to treat children addicted to online games, and internet including cybersex and online pornography in Beijing. These many other therapies are a rather softer option for addicts to choose.

Because internet addiction is becoming a high problem with teens, and there is a number of internet-related deaths and juvenile crimes, the government is also taking serious steps to prevent internet addiction. They chose to ban new internet cafes, and restrict violent computer games which can encourage violence among some teens according to Business week. Also, in effort to help prevent internet addiction, Shanghai's education commission organized a volunteer group whose main objective is to patrol the streets, and stop minors from entering internet cafés.

It seems that China is taking serious steps to prevent online addiction, and is keen on getting their students back on track. The many different therapies that are stemming from this addiction is ridiculous. It's only a matter of time before it affects us, and our views on internet addiction.