Nineteen Year Old Girl Abused To Death At Chinese Internet Addiction Camp
from the permanently-offline dept
While there has been blissfully only minor advancement in the US about the non-existent disease known as "internet addiction", the same can't be said of certain other countries. South Korea has a version of it, which mostly involves shutting down online video games for a certain portion of the day. But the real mover and shaker in this made up land of dependency is China, where six hours online a day makes you an addict (someone tell my employer!) and they've actually gone so far as to create internet addiction "camps" where people learn to eschew cat videos, Facebook posts about food, and ostensibly the news posted online that they're probably being horribly abused at that very camp.
That seems to be the tone of the reporting now that one family has been compensated $120,000 after their 19 year old girl was killed at one of these camps.
Earlier this year in May, LingLing passed away in a hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan province. It was reported by the Chinese media that she actually died before reaching the hospital. LingLing was reported to be attending Zhengzhou Boqiang New Idea Life Training School. While at addiction camp, LingLing was singled out by her instructors. She was reportedly taken to "extra" lessons on more than one occasion. According to another girl that attended the addiction camp, LingLing was singled out. According to the media and government reports, LingLing was beaten and dropped onto hard surfaces. The Zhengzhou coroners office reported that LingLing died from extreme head trauma.I guess I'm not really certain what picture I had in my head when I imagined an internet addiction camp, but it sure as hell didn't involve young women getting their brains beaten so badly that they expire. Also, that hundred-and-twenty-large seems a little light, considering the horror this family had to go through after being duped into believing such an internment was necessary to begin with. It all sounds worse when the report goes on to state that incidents of abuse have happened at these camps several times before as well.
So, while the "camp" in question, the one that essentially murdered a young girl, has had its license revoked, Chinese parents are going to have to start asking themselves which is more dangerous: "internet addiction" or the camps that purport to fix internet addiction.
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Filed Under: china, internet addiction, internet addiction camp
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Poor girl, rich family
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Or something.
I wonder if the Government hints the family to send their kin to such places...
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'addiction'
When a substance was addictive, ending access meant putting health at serious risk. Heroin is the prime example, and detoxing is a serious health event. However, in the late '70's or early '80's, US news organizations found that the conditioned reaction to the word still got attention (i.e. viewers, readers, listeners, etc.) even when the meaning was watered down. At first, it was substances that might create something like a headache or some other mild physiological effect if dropped. That already dilutes the meaning of 'addiction' to being pointless. Eat a sugar-rich piece of fruit the same time every day, and you will get an insulin spike on the day that you miss it. That isn't addiction... unless your ABC News and it's sweeps week.
Then we get to today. 'Addiction' refers to any substance or activity that a person will want to do more than once. I miss my morning bike ride when I don't get it. There aren't any other effects, besides the fact that I like to start my day with the peace and quiet. In today's lingo, though, I am addicted.
Apparently, some countries still treat the word as if it has meaning if the associated 'addiction' does not, including gross over-reactions such as this.
We should really strike the word from the dictionary, with the meaning so completely lost. People might enjoy social media, and they might really miss the interaction when they don't get it. But 'addiction?' The only addiction I see is the media's addiction to generating drama.
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Re: 'addiction'
Important distinction: do you want to do (substance/activity) instead of what you need to do?
Yes, there is dispute as to what is and is not addictive, including internet and games. The Wikipedia article on addictions includes a 9 question paragraph. Even if you dispute the article the 9 questions are a good baseline to ask yourself, or anybody you think might have a problem. Answering yes to any of the questions means you need to take a look at what's happening to you (or to the person you think might have a problem.)
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Re: 'addiction'
Like the stuff my parents forced me to use? It was called "food".
At first, it was substances that might create something like a headache or some other mild physiological effect if dropped.
If I don't get at least a couple doses of "food" every single day, I develop headaches, stomach pains, I get weak and have trouble concentrating.
Then we get to today. 'Addiction' refers to any substance or activity that a person will want to do more than once.
I've been using "food" two, sometimes three or more times a day for most of my life! I'm addicted!
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Re: Re: 'addiction'
/sarc
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Re: 'addiction'
But people use the word "addiction" so they don't have to take responsibility for their actions. "It's not my fault I use Facebook all day, I'm addicted and it can't be helped".
And since people are "addicted", they can claim they're "sick" to get sympathy. And pretty soon health insurance companies will figure out how to charge big money whenever people want to get "treatment" for these "addictions".
Here's a hint: just stop using Facebook. It's not a mind-altering substance like tobacco or alcohol.
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These Internet Addiction Camps...
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Obviously...
Clearly, sending them away to a ... camp is the only good way to cleanse them from the country.
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Only six hours per day?
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If you're playing 6 hours a day, maybe someone should tell your employer.
Come on techdirt, lets not loose focus.
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*I know I'm not suppose to use quotes to emphasize a word (Thanks Weird Al), but everyone is using that word and it's not the right word.
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The saddest part of the whole affair is that they realized that "he didn't really play that much", and their only photographs of him are stuck on his computer which they're too illiterate to access, so they kept his computer as a memento.
Just sad.
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Celestine Doudet-- A Parallel Case A Hundred and Sixty Years Ago
http://sueyounghistories.com/archives/2009/02/12/james-loftus-marsden-1815-1891/
http://ww w.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/57677/Conolly,_Pauline_-_The_Water_Doctors_Daughte rs.pdf
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:K4PWdEq77OwJ:http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__d ata/assets/pdf_file/0005/57677/Conolly,_Pauline_-_The_Water_Doctors_Daughters.pdf%2Bcelestine+doudet &hl=en&gbv=1&&ct=clnk
Reduced to essentials, the story is one of how society reacted to affluent children who displayed objectively normal, but subtly threatening behavior. In 1852, the five daughters of a English doctor, James Marsden, were suspected of masturbation. Respectable women were simply not supposed to be interested in sex, and this applied with even greater force to young girls. So the girls were sent to Paris away with a severe governess who had orders "to beat and starve it out of them." The gooverness, Celestine Doudet, beat and starved to such purpose that two of the girls soon died. There was a trial in France, which gave French official opinion the chance to say some unkind things about the general underlying kinkiness of English repression.
Allowing for differences in times and places, the Chinese internet scare seems basically similar. One reccurent truth is that things happen in private psychiatric hospitals which would never be allowed in a prison.
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let's troll :-)
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In Soviet Russia...
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