March/April 2015 Issue

Inside the Chinese Boot Camps Designed to Break Video Game Addiction

Photos from a “tough love” treatment center where anxious parents send their screen-obsessed kids.

    Photographs by Fernando Moleres; Text by James West


The camo and calisthenics in these photos may call to mind a military academy, but they actually document a rehab center for internet addicts. China has more online gamers—368 million—than the United States has people. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Chinese parents, psychiatrists, and media often describe wangyin, or internet addiction, as a clinical disorder. Sometimes called “digital heroin,” it is said to afflict 24 million young people. This center in a Beijing suburb houses 70 such patients, mostly boys, and is led by Tao Ran, a “tough love” former army colonel. While controversial treatments have been blamed for deaths at similar facilities, Tao claims his team’s methods—which can include brain scans and medication—have a 75 percent success rate. That’s welcome news for panicked mothers and fathers who, raised before China’s tech revolution, struggle to recognize the online lives of their children, and for a government that fears gaming is yet another way for the internet to corrupt young minds.

 

Tao Ran, a military doctor and researcher who built his career treating heroin addicts, runs the Internet Addiction Treatment Center. Among other tactics, the center deploys military discipline, drugs, and psychotherapy.
 

Residents head outside at 6:30 to start the day with exercises and drills.
 

A resident is wired up for electroencephalogram scans to measure brain activity.
 

The center’s program includes military style workouts.
 

The center’s canteen.
 

Inside a dormitory. The center encourages group activities, such as card games, to build socialization skills weakened by solo screen time.
 

Residents look through books about internet disorders authored by the center’s director.
 

Medication for residents.
 

Wang Tai, 18, stands by his bed at the center. 
 

Xu Deyi lies in bed reading. What does the 17-year-old think of the book, which was sent to him by his mother? “It helps me to be aware of life, to realize the meaning of human existence. It shows me a clear way to achieve myself and encourages me to feel life every day.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate