Clinic tries to wean addicts off Internet fix

Min loses all track of time when he sits down to play computer games - sessions usually last at least 10 hours.

GONGJU, SOUTH KOREA:

Choi Hyun-Min loses all track of time when he sits down to play computer games, but the sessions usually last at least 10 hours.

Choi (not his real name) is among hundreds of thousands officially considered to be Internet addicts in South Korea, one of the world’s most wired nations.

Now the 16-year-old student is undergoing therapy at the “Save Brain Clinic”, which opened in early May and styles itself as the country’s first specialist clinic for such addicts.

“Internet addiction is not mere delinquency,” said Lee Jaewon, who heads the clinic at Gongju National Hospital, a psychiatric institution 120 km (74 miles) south of Seoul.

“It is a serious issue and parents need to feel less embarrassed and bring children to hospitals for treatment before it’s too late.”

The clinic offers a five-week treatment programme. The test and treatment fee is 630,000 won ($585) with government insurance coverage, and up to 1,940,000 won without.

Many parents have made inquiries. But only three people, including Choi, began the five-week course, which intends to focus on adolescents but is also open to adults. Although Internet addiction is not accepted as a mental disorder, Lee said, the problem is already deep-rooted in South Korean society. Choi’s addiction began around age nine. Once, he said, he punched a hole in the window of his parents’ room to retrieve a computer monitor which they had locked away.

Early last year, Lee said, a 31-year old man was brought to the hospital by his parents after playing games in an Internet cafe for 780 hours excluding short breaks.

There have also been several fatal incidents. Last year a mother was arrested for killing her three-year-old son while she was tired from Internet game-playing.

A 15-year-old boy committed suicide after killing his mother for scolding him over excessive playing of computer games.

In an especially tragic case, a 41-year-old man was sentenced to two years in prison after he and his wife left their baby daughter to die at home of malnutrition while they were in internet cafes.

Figures from the family ministry estimate there are two million Internet addicts in a nation of 48.6 million.

Despite strong opposition from the computer games industry, parliament passed a bill forcing online game companies to block users aged under 16 from playing between midnight and 6 am.

It goes into force this November. “We will start now, hoping more medical effort and attention will be given to the issue.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2011.