Beijing clinic ministers to online addicts

updated 9:52 a.m. ET July 1, 2005

BEIJING - The 12 teenagers and young adults, some in ripped jeans and baggy T-shirts, sit in a circle, chewing gum and fidgeting as they shyly introduce themselves.   “I’m 12 years old,” one boy announces with a smile.  “I love playing computer games.  That’s it.”

“It’s been good to sleep” says another, a 17-year-old with spiky hair, now that he’s no longer on the computer all day.

The youths are patients at China’s first officially licensed clinic for Internet addiction, a downside of the online frenzy that has accompanied the nation’s breathtaking economic boom.

“All the children here have left school because they are playing games or in chat rooms everyday,” says the clinic’s director, Dr. Tao Ran.  “They are suffering from depression, nervousness, fear and unwillingness to interact with others, panic and agitation.  They also have sleep disorders, the shakes and numbness in their hands.”

According to government figures, China has the world’s second-largest online population — 94 million — after the United States.

While China promotes Internet use for business and education, government officials also say Internet cafes are eroding public morality.  Authorities regularly shut down Internet cafes — many illegally operated — in crackdowns that also include huge fines for their operators.

State media has also highlighted cases of obsessed Internet gamers, some of wom have flunked out of school, committed suicide or murder.  Nonetheless, Internet cafes continue to thrive, with outlets found in even the smallest and poorest of villages.  Most are usually packed late into the night.

Dr. Kimberly Young, a Bradford, Pa., clinical psychologist whose 1998 book on Internet addiction has been translated into Chinese, says she’s not surprised the Chinese would face problems with Internet overuse.

“They are catching up with a lot of our technology, and certainly at that juncture, are now able to run into some of the same difficulties,” Young said.

While treatment programs were virtually nonexistent in the United States a decade ago, she said, dozens of clinics and countless individual therapists such as herself offer counseling and treatment in her country.

Programs are growing elsewhere, too.

Just a few years ago, Young says, she attended a conference in Switzerland where she was the only American out of some 200 academics and clinicians who gathered to address Internet addiction.

Tao’s government-owned clinic, which began taking patients in March, occupies the top floor of a two-story building on a quiet, tree-lined street on the sprawling campus of the Beijing Military Region Central Hospital in the heart of the Chinese capital.

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