China requires filtering in schools

Perhaps a sign that there are more and more computers in the schools of this giant developing country that has more Internet users than the US has population, China is now requiring Net-filtering in schools. "According to the Ministry of Education, local education departments and schools should guide students in different age groups to 'properly handle cyber world' and encourage them to report any suspicious websites" as part of its anti-porn campaign, DigitalJournal.com reports. The basic difference between this development in China and the US's school filtering is a law passed in 2000 (the Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA) that required schools receiving federal "e-rate" technology subsidies to employ filtering. I was surprised that the Chinese government, well-known for its Net censorship skills (when my family was traveling there in 2008, we couldn't access our travel blog on what was then a very new blogging service called Vox.com), was only now instituting school filtering – which is why I think this is more a sign of better tech and other resources in Chinese schools than an oversight on the government's part. China may be "catching up" on the sexting front too: Digital Journal cites China's Xinhua news service as reporting that "China Mobile, the nation's largest mobile network carrier, said sending mobile porn, either through photos or messages, could have the phone number revoked permanently." As for those Net-use numbers, the San Jose Mercury News reports that China has 384 million Internet users. "The number of people going online by mobile phone rose 106% [last year] to 233 million" (8% of whom access the Net only by phone).

China's definition of Net addiction

Sheer critical mass could be one reason why Chinese doctors had to come up with a definition of Internet addiction. Net users aged 18-30 make up half of China's estimated online population of some 250 million people, and 10% of that group of Netizens are addicted (about 70% of them male), China Daily reports. That's 12.5 million addicts. The announcement, by Dr. Tao Ran of Beijing's Military General Hospital, was one of two firsts for China: the first diagnostic definition of Internet addiction "amid efforts to address an increasing number of psychological problems that reportedly result from Internet overuse" and China's first Internet addiction clinic. "China could become the first country to classify Internet addiction as a clinical disorder and plans to lead the world by registering the condition with the World Health Organisation," the Times of London reports. Symptoms include "yearning to get back online, mental or physical distress, irritation and difficulty concentrating or sleeping." Dr. Tao "classifies as addicts those who spend at least six hours online a day and have shown at least one symptom in the past three months." He said 80% can be cured with treatment that "usually lasts about three months." The Times adds that "research by the internet media company InterActiveCorp showed that 42% of Chinese youngsters polled felt addicted to the internet, compared with 18% in the US."