Internet addiction is becoming a problem in China, as more than 250 million Chinese are now connected to the World Wide Web. An estimated four to ten million of these users are addicted. Professor Tao Ran sends internet addicts to military camp for rehabilitation.

Text and photos by RNW Beijing correspondent Karen Meirik
 
In a fenced off area on the edge of Beijing, an authoritarian sergeant is drilling a group of plump young people. They are not young recruits, but internet addicts who have been locked up on this military terrain for rehabilitation.
 
Wan Chuan (20) is one of these patients. “My family has sent me here because I always want to be online. Sometimes for days in a row.” Wan is just one of the more than 50 patients at the Internet Rehabilitation Centre of the People’s Liberation Army, led by Professor Tao Ran.
 
Lucrative business
Ten years ago, Dr Ran was the first to start a clinic like this in China. Now there are thousands of them, because it is a lucrative business. A month’s treatment in the army clinic costs over 8,000 renminbi. This is more than four times the average monthly income in Beijing. Nevertheless, the patients keep coming and according to Professor Tao, the military approach is part of his success.
 
“Traditionally, parents believe that the army will help their children become helpful and social. It also generates a good daily routine. The army is the proper place to turn them into polite people.”
 
Army doctor
Tao Ran is himself also an army doctor. He swears by discipline. He says the internet addicts haven’t had enough of this for too long.

“They don’t only have psychological problems, but also a bad lifestyle. Often they don’t wash themselves; they just sit at their computer. They live virtually in the American time zone, so they sleep in the daytime and play at night. But during their rehabilitation, they have to learn a normal daily routine.”
 
Wearing military uniforms and physical exercise helps them to look less sloppy. Wan Chuan says he realises how addicted to the internet he was, now that he can no longer indulge.

“I used to spend all my pocket money on it, didn’t eat properly and didn’t buy myself any clothes.”

Addicted children with less pocket money than Wan Chuan are said to steal or bribe in order to get the necessary cash. According to a judge in Beijing, around 85 percent of the crimes committed in the city by young people have a direct link to online gaming.
 
Prestige
Although Professor Tao considers internet addiction a worldwide problem, he believes it is worse in China because of the one-child policy:
 
“Parents have far too high expectations of their one son or daughter, so they put them under too much pressure. The child is supposed to give the family prestige. If they don’t get high grades at school, many parents constantly criticise their child. But this affects the self-esteem, which can lead to addiction.”

This is why Dr Tao’s treatment also involves the parents.

“But the parents are a lot harder to treat than their children. They are often set in their ways.”
 
Dr Tao claims that 70 percent of the patients make a permanent recovery thanks to his treatment. Wan Chuan is not yet sure he will make it.

“Gradually I’m getting used to it, but especially in the first weeks it was awful.”

And after weeks of intensive treatment, Wan Chuan would still prefer to play a computer game...