Capt. saab, very interesting and so true.. Here's what caught my eyes this morning..Read budha budhi (in my case :)) instead of teens..lol.. China locks up teens addicted to Internet Strict clinic near Beijing is operated by a military researcher Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post Friday, February 23, 2007 (02-23) 04:00 PST Daxing, China -- Sun Jiting spends his days locked behind metal bars in a military-run installation here, put there by his parents. The 17-year-old high school student is not allowed to communicate with friends back home, and his only companions are psychologists, nurses and other patients. Each morning at 6:30, he is jolted awake by a soldier in fatigues shouting, "This is for your own good!" Sun's offense: Internet addiction. Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has begun a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation. Few countries have been as effective historically in fighting drug and alcohol addiction as China, which has been lauded for its successes -- and criticized for harsh techniques. Now the country is turning its attention to fighting another supposed addiction -- one that has been blamed in the state-run media for a murder over virtual property earned in an online game, for a string of suicides and for the failure of youths in their studies. The Chinese government in recent months has joined South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in taking measures to try to limit the time teens spend online. It has passed regulations banning youths from Internet cafes and has implemented control programs that kick teens off online games after five hours. There's a global controversy over whether heavy Internet use should be defined as a mental disorder, with some psychologists, including a handful in the United States, arguing that it should be. Backers of the notion say the addiction can lead people to neglect work, school and social lives. But no country has gone quite as far as China in mounting a public crusade against Internet addiction. To skeptics, the campaign dovetails a bit too nicely with China's broader effort to control what its citizens can see on the Internet. The government runs a massive program that limits Web access, censors sites and seeks to control online political dissent. Google and other Internet companies have come under heavy criticism abroad for going along with China's demands. In its Internet-addiction campaign, the government is helping to fund eight in-patient rehabilitation clinics across the country. The clinic in Daxing, a suburb of Beijing, the capital, is the oldest and largest, with 60 patients on a normal day and as many as 280 during peak periods. Few of the patients, who range in age from 12 to 24, are here willingly. Most have been forced to come by their parents, who are paying upward of $1,300 a month -- about 10 times the average salary in China -- for the treatment. Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks. Located on an army training base, the Internet-addiction clinic has metal grates and padlocks on every door and bars on every window. Among the milder cases are those of Yu Bo, 21, from Inner Mongolia, and Li Yanjiang, 15, from Hebei province. Both said that they used to spend four to five hours a week online. Both said that their daily lives weren't affected, but that their parents wanted them to cut their computer usage to zero so they could study. He Fang, 22, a college student from the western autonomous region of Xinjiang, said his grades tanked when he started playing online games several hours a night. The clinic "has mainly helped me change the way I think," he said. "It's not about getting away from pressure, but facing it and dealing with it." Before Sun, the 17-year-old, checked into the clinic about a month ago, he said, he was sometimes online playing games for 15 hours nonstop. "My life was not routine -- day and night I was messed up," he said. Since he's been there, Sun said, he's decided to finish high school, attend college and then work at a private company. With the help of a counselor, he has mapped out a life plan from now until he's 84.