[photopress:cyber_cafe.jpg,full,alignright]China is still trying to deal with what newspapers call ‘youngsters addicted to the Internet’. In fact, that is not the case. They are not addicted to the Internet as such. They are addicted to online multi-payer games or MMORPG (A massively (or massive) multiplayer online role-playing game) if you want to sound technical. Such addiction is not confined to China. It does not help when other media call it Internet addiction. It is multi-player online addiction which is a different thing altogether.
The 10-day camp, which is recruiting participants from Shanghai, will open at the end of the month. Potential campers, aged 14 to 22, can visit the site with their parents to take a psychological test and speak with professional counselors for evaluation. According to research by Shanghai’s youth affairs office, those seriously addicted to muti-player games should receive professional help, but this rarely happens.
A low level of this sort of addiction is believed to exist in more than 10% of Shanghai youngsters.
According to Dr Du Yasong from the Shanghai Mental Health Center, youngsters addicted to multi-player online games are characterized by poor social abilities, imitating others, or an inability to achieve their goals. When they get frustrated, they often turn to Internet games for a feeling of accomplishment. This seems logical.
The summer camp will bring together dozens of professionals with experience in 1,171 cases of such addiction. They hope to develop an intervention process, then use it in schools, families and communities.
And, in a joint effort with the camp, Shanghai’s education commission has organized a volunteer group to patrol the city’s streets to stop people under 18 entering Internet cafes.
In Hongkou District alone, the volunteer network covers more than 70 Internet cafes.
Overcoming addiction to multi-player online games does not mean staying away from computers. In Ludi Primary School in Jiading district, students surf the web under the guidance of teachers. In middle schools, students learn about web page design and the Shanghai World Expo 2010 on the Internet. None of which is helped by reports of Internet addiction, which it is not. The reports should be about multi-player on line games addiction so that the problem is more precisely defined.
Source: China View