Chinese teenagers are becoming addicted to the internet, partly as a consequence of the strict “one-couple, one-child” rule that has created a generation of lonely, spoilt children.

An expert told The Times that two million youngsters were affected. The Government is on the verge of implementing new rules restricting the hours that people can spend playing online games.

Addicts in China are on average ten years younger than those in the West, the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences found — between 14 and 19 instead of 20 and 30. Gao Wenbin, a researcher, said: “They are more susceptible.”

Most of the addicts are transfixed by online games rather than the virtual relationships and pornographic videos that interest their Western counterparts. As many as 15 per cent of internet players in this age group need help because their preoccupation with the virtual world damages their real-world life, the study concluded.

Mr Gao said: “The percentage is astounding. This can be the highest in the world.” China already has the world’s second-largest internet population, after the US, with 123 million people online, of whom 15 per cent are under 18.

Tao Ran, the director of the Treatment Centre for Internet Addicts in Beijing, said the one-child policy meant that children had no company at home. There was also a real lack of sports facilities. At the same time broadband had spread so quickly that many parents had little knowledge of the internet and could not guide their children. “They see the internet as a toy when it is a tool,” he said.

The researchers said that the addiction was already leading to rising crime among young people. “Boys, like young male animals, need to play games,” Mr Gao said. However, games available to children at school were not particularly exciting for boys on the verge of adulthood and the teenagers were turning to the virtual world, or to crime, as an outlet for their energy.

The boys became frustrated when they realised that it was not enough to have good scores in school. They also wanted girlfriends, money and to be athletic. With no other way to solve these problems in a society that frowned on teenage relationships, boys went online to solve their frustrations.

Mr Tao, who runs the military-sponsored clinic that is China’s first centre treating internet addiction, said that China needed measures similar to those in other countries that limit the time people can play online games. “At the end of this month, China will adopt such a measure. Some cities will limit usage to five hours, others will restrict it to three.”

State media said last week that there had been a 68 per cent rise in juvenile crime in five years and that the figure would continue to rise.

Growth online

123m internet users, up from

103m in 2005

30m of China’s 200m students regularly go online

1.2m web pages have the .cn domain

25% of Chinese search with Google, 60 per cent use the Chinese search engine, Baidu

$507m is size of online shopping market. Expected to double this year





Source: China Internet Information Network, Shanghai iResearch

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