A group of inmates at a Chinese boot camp for young internet addicts tied up a supervisor and made a dramatic break for freedom. The 14 addicts made their great escape from the Huai’an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre last Wednesday, complaining that they could no longer endure the “monotonous work and intensive training”, one Chinese newspaper said. Aged from 15 to 22, the inmates staged their mutiny by seizing a duty supervisor when he was in bed and immobilising him in his quilt. He shouted for help.
The children apologised but continued to tie him up and escaped, making a break for the hometown of the leader of the group. The police were alerted after a taxi driver took them to a local station when he became suspicious of the young men all similarly dressed in camouflage shirts and unable to pay their fare. Parents of the young escapees insisted they return at once. One mother wept at the police station, sobbing in distress and describing how her son once spent 28 hours straight playing online games.
An official at the camp said: “We have to use military-style methods such as total immersion and physical training on these young people. We need to teach them some discipline and help them to establish a regular lifestyle.” Young people sent to the camp to be treated for their addiction to the internet – in general taking the form of obsessive online gaming – are required to get out of bed at 5am with lights out at exactly 9:30pm.
They must undergo two hours of physical training as well as courses in calligraphy, traditional Chinese philosophy and various psychological training. Yang Guihua, mother of the youngster who orchestrated the escape, said her son had returned to the rehabilitation centre and defended the treatment inmates receive. She said: “I don’t think there is any problem with the training methods at the centre. They are for my child’s own good.” Of the youngsters, 13 have been returned to the camp. All had been admitted to the school for six months and their parents had paid a fee of 18,000 yuan (£1,800).
3 comments:
it sounds more like an excuse to get more inmates to work on shoe production rather then a camp for addicts
They are killing these teens off. Internet Addiction Disorder is not even a part of the DSM. It is not a recognized illness, so they are curing the teens for nothing.
I believe that it is the parents who need to learn about the present world and the amount of time students need to be in front of the computer in order to be competitive in a globalized world.
In China they have a lost generation. Mao decided that all citizens should go out in the countryside to be farmers for some year so they could learn to be humble. Once he died these orders were discontinued and the younger generations bypassed the older. This forgotten generation is now the parents and grandparents of the teenagers and they know very little about what is going on.
This enables such camps and teenagers die in them. It has happen several times.
Spoiled only children and the parents who cater to them...
It's not really fair that the kids get blamed.
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