OK, so internet addiction is old hat but I am continually amazed by the stuff that people will do just to get their fix. There are other, perhaps extenuating circumstances: broken homes, parental neglect, problems at school—but some young people in China are really falling through the cracks. Read an article about how an 18 yr old boy lived in an internet cafe for three years; he basically played games until he was too tired to go on and then would sleep. He developed some kind of pelvis infection and things finally caught up to him recently when he tried to get up to go the loo and could not move. They rushed him to the hospital and that’s how his story got picked up by the media. Internet addiction makes people do strange things. A third-year student at a Kunming university spent so much time on the net that he neglected to shower for three days.

A more in-depth story about the “black” net bars that cater to underage consumers with little cash is a bit more shocking. Xiao Xing, a middle school student, became so addicted to the internet that his parents were forced to get rid of the computer. With nowhere to get his fix the boy turned to the illegal net bars that are ensconced within regular apartments. There is obviously no signage: people who know, know where to go. Adults are not allowed in. There are often more than 10 computers stuffed into these apartments. Kids can surf the internet for 2 rmb/hour sans ID card.

When Mr. Chen, Xiao Xing’s father, went looking for his son, he went into one of the first net bars and a saw several computers, but no kids. Then he went to a second one, and again saw a bunch of computers, but no people. He noticed that the monitor lights and mouse lights were blinking. He sensed that these computers had recently been used. He heard a sound and opened a curtain to find several boys hunched and hidden behind it, staring out at him in fear. Xiao Xing wasn’t there. He told them “go home, your parents are going to get worried.”

The reporter managed to interview a kid (it might have been Xiao Xing, on the way home) and discovered that this was standard protocol at the illegal net bars: whenever someone knocks or comes in, the kids have to hide, behind curtains, in the bathroom, on the balcony, etc. People know about the existence of these places, but the strong arm of the law hasn’t done much to clamp down on this phenomenon: at most they took away some of the computers and restricted the number of computers able to access the internet from that apartment—but never were these people arrested or ordered to stop, which is, in my mind, what ought to happen.

One time when asked who all these kids surfing the internet were, the boss lady replied “these are all my relatives…oh and that boy is a friend of theirs.” Shameless. Just shameless.

These places mushrooms, you stamp them out in one place and they pop up somewhere else. All the parents that are trying to curb the excessive net addictions of their kids had best beware. If the heat is on one of the places, the kids can just go to another one nearby.
I really think they ought to just not let the owners of those apartments ever get online again, ever—or limit their connection to one computer.