Citing Youth Internet Addiction, China Bans New 'Net Cafes for 2007

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 6, 2007 - 11:42am.

Beijing - Citing "Internet addiction" among its youth, China has banned the establishment of any new Internet cafes for the remainder of this year, the Xinhua state news agency reported on Tuesday.

There are currently some 113,000 Internet cafes in China, according to the country's Ministry of Information Industry.

The article cited a report by the Beijing Reformatory for Juvenile Delinquents, which claims 33.5% of its detainees were "goaded into committing crimes, mostly robbery and rape, by violent online games or erotic websites."

The Chinese government also reiterated that Internet cafes must not admit anyone under the age of 18, with a third offense potentially leading to revocation of a cafe's business license.

A report from the China National Children's Center claims that 13% of Chinese Internet users under the age of 18 are "Internet addicts."

http://tinyurl.com/ywbr2f (Reuters)

Published in DMW Daily, March 6, 2007

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Comments

Typo Addition Addiction

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on March 6, 2007 - 1:28pm.

Hey, nice article. you may want to change the title. It happens. No worries.

Typo fixed

Submitted by Jay Baage on March 6, 2007 - 1:40pm.

Thanks for pointing it out.
/Jay Baage (on the newsdesk today).

HEADLINE: Chinese youth addicted to information

Submitted by chuck p. alien (not verified) on March 7, 2007 - 9:55am.

Yah, i hate it when the oppressed populace finds itself addicted to un-censored news and information from around the planet. the next step could be addiction to democracy, or that pesky addiction to human rights. pretty soon you could have a whole nation of free-thought-aholics. i applaud the chinese government for cracking down on this dangerous trend of people actually reading and interpreting information on their own. good work, reds!

chinese youth internet addiction

Submitted by london (not verified) on March 8, 2007 - 5:18pm.

living in the USA, internet addiction is very obvious and a major part in many poeple's lives. The growing number of people on myspace is a pretty good example. myspace is visited more than google! i think that chinas responses to this addiction is very good. childrens grades have been dropping rapidly, and the banning of youth in internet cafes will probably help alot. but theres many websites that help with addictions such as these. sites like www.addicted.com or others that i cant quite think of right now. but i have visited many and they offer a wide range of support and treatments.