Inside China's Fight Against Internet Addiction

By JESSIE JIANG / BEIJING Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2012

Even though it was only a week before the Spring Festival — the most important family holiday on the
Chinese calendar — Wang Hongxia was forcing her son out of the house. She took her 12-year-old from
their home in the northwestern city of Xian to a secluded Beijing military compound more than 700 miles
away. Like many other parents across China today, Wang felt as though she had no choice. "Things have
absolutely gone out of control," said Wang, 45, almost in tears. "My son just beat and bit me again this
morning after I wouldn't let him touch the computer."

With the world's largest netizen population of 300 million, China is struggling with a new plight: Internet
obsession among its youth. Since the 2004 establishment of the country's first Internet Addiction Center, the
military-run boot camp in Beijing where Wang took her son, more than 3,000 adolescent and young-adult
patients have been treated for Internet addiction. Hundreds of similar treatment centers have mushroomed in
recent years in China, joining other centers operating elsewhere in Asia and the U.S. The U.S.-based Center
for Internet Addiction Recovery classifies the disorder as compulsive behavior in which "the Internet
becomes the organizing principle of addicts' lives .

Though the fledgling disorder has been widely identified, defining it in China has not been easy. Tao Ran,
director of the Beijing treatment center and a colonel in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), helped come
up with a strict definition of Internet addiction last fall: consecutive usage of the Web for 6 hr. a day for
three straight months is addiction. The new standard, which is still pending official endorsement by the
Ministry of Health, has aroused widespread skepticism in Chinese cyberspace, with many arguing that too
many people could be wrongly categorized as Internet addicts under this definition.

The murky guidelines have not stopped anxious parents like Wang from dragging their children to Tao's
camp, a grim, four-story building in Beijing's major military compound. Once checked in, most patients are
required to stay for three months, without access to the outside world, cell phones or, of course, computers.
But unlike in other similar camps, parents of patients at the Internet Addiction Center have to stay at the
camp to receive "treatment" too — because, according to Tao, Internet addiction is often a result of
parenting mistakes. For most families, providing this treatment to a child is already a sacrifice. The total cost
for a family usually amounts to nearly $3,000 — almost as much as an average Chinese couple earns in three
months.

Life in the treatment camp, not surprisingly, is defined by strict, semimilitary disciplines. Patients get up at
6:30 a.m. and go to bed at 9:30 p.m. Their daily schedule includes military drills, therapy sessions, reading
and sports. "At first, I felt like [I was] living in hell," says 22-year-old Yang Xudong, a camp resident for
two months. "But over time, it gets more comfortable and peaceful." Despite the small steps he's made, like
eating a diet that consists of something other than instant noodles, the Beijing native admitted he still got
upset too easily and was "afraid of people" — two signature symptoms of Internet addiction, according to
Tao. "I think life in this camp has definitely calmed me down to some degree," says Yang. "But I'm far from
ready to get out, since I don't know what to do with my life yet."

That lack of motivation is widely shared by the young adults at the camp, even among patients with
decorated academic backgrounds. Didi, a 20-year-old college sophomore who did not disclose his full name,
picked up online gaming almost as soon as he got into the prestigious Tsinghua University. He says he
became so obsessed that he skipped all his classes for an entire semester and eventually received academic
warnings from the school. As many as 30 students from Beida and Tsinghua — China's most storied
universities — have been to the camp, says Tao, and it's becoming an increasing trend among students from
other top schools. "Our kids are all very special and intelligent," says the PLA colonel. "It's only normal for
people to make detours when they're young. Our mission is to help them get back on track before it's too
late."

On the same afternoon that Wang Hongxia and her son arrived at the boot camp, an 18-year-old boy was
ready to leave after months of strenuous training. As part of the camp's tradition, he hugged every one of his
fellow patients. "It's certainly an emotional moment for the kids, as they have bound together over the
months," says Tao. "And to me, it's especially rewarding to see them step out of here with all the confidence
that they deserve."

TIME World
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By 2025, 1.8 billion people will live in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity. This means that
they will not have sufficient water resources to maintain their current level of per capita food production
from agriculture—even at high levels of irrigation efficiency—and also to meet reasonable water needs for
domestic, industrial, and environmental purposes. To sustain their needs, water will have to be transferred
out of agriculture into other sectors, making these countries or regions increasingly dependent on imported
food. The remainder of the 118 countries included in the study theoretically have sufficient water resources
to meet their needs. But many of them will have to develop their water supplies by 25 percent or more. This
will mean embarking on large and expensive water-development projects. For many countries, specifically
in sub-Saharan Africa, it will be difficult to mobilize the necessary financial and other resources to achieve
this goal. IWMI predicts that, by 2025, 33%, or some 2 billion people, will live in countries or regions with
absolute water scarcity. All of these absolute water-scarce countries, except South Africa, will have to
import a substantial portion of their cereal consumption. Also by 2025, some 45% of the population of these
countries—roughly 2.7 billion people _ will live in areas whose water resources must be developed by at
least 25%.

Tense and form

Predicting what we will be like in the future is fascinating and has been the domain of science fiction writes
for centuries. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion. It's just that some are more (scientific)---------------------
based than others. Many of the ( assume)---------------------------- for the future appearance of humans are
based on past trends or on the fanciful idea that body parts used more frequently will get larger, or those that
are not used much will become ( little)------------------------ and ----------------- powerful Will technology
replace our need for strong limbs? Will too much television cause humans to evolve square eyes? Will we
have the abnormally large and more ( substance) ---------------------------- brains commonly seen in science
fiction movies? Most of these predictions are not based on the principles of biology and evolution. While we
do not know what events( happen) ----------------------------in the future that may affect the way we evolve .
Human evolution relies on the differences in our genes and in our ability to pass on these genetic
differences . Over time, the population should change as these differences become more apparent It ( suggest
) ---------------------------that, given enough time, the human race will start to look more and more alike,
becoming the 'average' of all the current different physical appearances.