- HONG KONG (AFP) -- Anthony
Chan betrays the tell-tale signs of his addiction: his skin is pallid and
covered in spots, he sits nervously hunched, peering to correct his blighted
vision and he has trouble communicating with friends and family.
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- At just 16 he is emotionally fragile, physically ill
and his future has been compromised by the addition which has him in its
grip.
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- But when the lights are switched off he gets online,
he could not care less about the problems it brings. His drug is the internet
and, when connected, it makes the lonely Hong Kong schoolboy feel on top
of the world.
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- "The computer is my friend, it's my life, my social
life," says Chan, shifting in his chair and squinting in the glare
of the brightly-lit office where we talk. It is one of the few times this
week he has left the confines of his bedroom where he spends hours and
hours every day logged onto the internet and he is missing it already,
he says.
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- In the neon-shiny future-world of Hong Kong, the computer
is king and the internet its kingdom. Some 90 percent of the population
owns or has access to a computer and everyday an estimated 3.5 million
of the territory's 6.8 million population logs onto the net. Around Asia,
the numbers logging on run into the hundreds of millions.
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- For many, of course, the internet is just what it was
meant to be: a source of information and means of communication, helping
them keep in touch with family and friends around the world.
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- But for some of the net-generation, like Anthony, who
have grown up surrounded by home computers, video games and the internet,
this strange new world has its dangers. A basic function the net was invented
to assist has been lost: the art of human communication.
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- According to research by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
more than a third of 1002 parents surveyed in Hong Kong, like Anthony's,
said their children, like the children of tens of thousands of families
round the region, are virtually addicted.
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- In the United States, where researchers are grappling
with the phenomenon, a study by net-psychologist Kimberly Young suggests
as many as one in 10 users spend abnormal amounts of time on the web.
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- And judging by a sudden increase in cases being referred
to care organisations, it appears to be a trend that is mushrooming rapidly
throughout the more developed parts of Asia.
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- "It is not surprising they get addicted," says
Wendy Fung, a social worker at the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society who
is helping Anthony Chan fight his addiction.
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- "We put a lot of resources and energy into encouraging
students to use computers. They type their homework on them, research information
on the internet and communicate through emails with fellow students."
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- Anthony himself admits the pain it causes him when he
is not online.
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- "I miss it when I'm not using it. When I go home,
I switch on the computer straight away," he says, his bent-over stance
acquired during hours hunched over his keyboard giving him the haunted
look of a hunted man.
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- "One of my favourites is science fiction. I go through
up to 60 stories a day," he says, rocking his head back and forth
in an effort to soothe the neck pain he suffers from mouse and keyboard
use.
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- And the long hours he spends on the computer - usually
surfing until around 3am and sometimes throughout the night - has also
left him perpetually tired and his eyes dry from sleep-deprivation.
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- Socially, too, he is a wreck. He is unable to make eye
contact with other people and he has lost the articulateness he had as
a youngster. His self-esteem has crashed and left him prone to bouts of
self-doubt. He has no goals he can think of in life. And the great outdoors
holds little allure. "I'm not particularly good at sports - I would
vomit if I run," he tells me.
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- "The internet keeps me company, it keeps me out
of boredom," he says.
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- Louis Leung, a journalism and communications professor
at the Chinese University, says that for young people in Hong Kong, many
of them unsure of what they want from life, the internet is often irresistible.
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- "You can be someone else in cyberspace," Leung
says. "People at a young age are still unsure about their identity.
There are a lot of boundaries in real life, there's etiquette you have
to follow. But when you are on the internet, you can be free."
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- Trapped as they are in small flats in a densely populated
territory like Hong Kong, the young of Hong Kong find the internet affords
a mental escape from the people with whom they share their confines, in
the case of Anthony Chan, his parents, sister and grandmother.
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- Relationships are damaged by the obsession with this
escape.
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- "When it came to dinner time, my mum would shout
and tell me to take a break... but I was too into my computer," Anthony
recalls. "I didn't listen to her. Sometimes I would skip dinner and
that would lead to a lot of arguments with my mum."
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- According to his social worker, Fung, a lot of families
do not understand the attraction of the internet and its underlying risks.
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- "For parents who are foreign to computers, it is
difficult to advise their children on computer usage," she says.
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- And the poorer relationship these children have with
their family, the bigger chance they will resort to the internet for comfort,
for friends.
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- Leung agrees: "Young people are not good at time
management, they are not mature enough to have the will power to control
themselves at an age when they still need to be guided."
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- The more they become addicted to the net, the worse they
become. "The more they do it, the more they are detached from reality,"
Leung says.
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- "I don't really like going out and meeting people,"
Anthony admits. At school, he pays no attention to his classes and only
thinks about rushing home to his computer. "This has really affected
my schoolwork because I've had no time to study," he says.
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- Unsurprisingly, after a promising start to his academic
career, Anthony failed all his subjects last term and is now at risk of
missing the first rung on the city's notoriously competitive careers ladder.
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- "I couldn't control myself. I knew what I was doing
was wrong. I knew the damage it was doing to my life. Everyone told me
to quit but I chose to ignore them," he says.
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- The term 'internet addiction' has been used to describe
problematic, excessive or mal-adaptive use of the internet, and it neatly
sums up the situation Anthony is in.
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- In her book Caught in the Net, US psychologist Young
said an internet addict was someone who would stay online for pleasure
averaging 38 hours or more per week, and wrote that, "internet addicts
can be people who are depressed, lonely, afraid to go out and in high family
conflicts."
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- For Dr Gilda Carle, a relationship psychologist based
in New York, "When the rest of your life falls apart, you are addicted...
It is an escape, a fantasy, a release from something that isn't working
at home. It is a drug because it give an unnatural high. And it can ruin
your life."
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- Leung of the Chinese University said psychologists are
adopting schemes used for gambling addiction to measure internet obsession
and interest in the problem is now rising in Asia.
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- Already, several research and counselling centres have
been set up in South Korea, and Taiwan's education ministry has carried
out bi-monthly checks of internet cafes since 2001 to make sure youngsters
are not skipping classes to surf the net. Some courses are now operating
for addicts in Hong Kong.
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- Judith Ng, another social worker at the Hong Kong Family
Welfare Society, ran a short course for young addicts including Anthony
Chan but says more resources are needed to properly address the growing
problem.
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- Counselling helps, as does forced abstinence, she says.
Her courses seek to build self-confidence and communications, social and
leadership skills through specially-designed tasks that require human interaction.
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- For now, the course seems to have had some affect on
Anthony who tells me he has begun cutting down the hours he spends on the
internet and is trying to improve relations with his family. He has also
made a stab at cultivating other hobbies, using what he has learned online
to write his own books.
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- It takes time, energy and cooperation with his family
to succeed, but his addiction, like that of others, can be cured, Fung
says.
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- "We've seen successful cases which motivates us
to go on."
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- Copyright © 2005. The Sydney Morning Herald.
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- http://smh.com.au/articles/2005/01/12/1105423546863.html
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