The confusion of internet addiction---Wang Bing, PhD in Mental Health, Peking University

Recently, a senior student in Jiangsu for the withdrawal of internet addiction, with a kitchen knife self-cut left. This real-life version of the "broken wrist" people are very sad, hard to calm. Internet addiction has been raised for more than 10 years now, and we often overlook important things when parents, educators, and the whole society are scrambling for children with internet addiction. Addictive behavior is often a symptom rather than a fundamental sticking point, as if someone is used to drinking alcohol.

For children, there are often some important reasons behind the seemingly incomprehensible behavior. In the virtual world of the network, a poor learning child can also find the hero of the achievement of the king, in the reality of the students are isolated young people may be praised for their praise ... Many children plunge into the online world precisely because the reality is too skinny. As Jane McGonigal wrote in the game Change World, "the game does not only do for us: waste time, self-containment and loss of real life." Behind the game is the thirst for more satisfying work, the thirst for belonging, and the thirst for a more meaningful life. ”

If these desires are not met effectively, just let the child stop surfing the internet, just like not to let thirsty people drink water. For children's behavior correction, there is a more obvious but often overlooked the truth, do more right there is no time to do wrong. We may not only focus on and the network for children, but to focus on how to let children in the real learning and life to find confidence and fun, blindly put the blame on the network game is a lazy suspicion, and then thirsty people always find ways to quench their thirst, plugging than sparse.

Over the years, countless parents have spared no effort to send their children to various orthodontic institutions with the aim of "saving lives", although sometimes proper intervention is necessary, but this should never be the whole. Foreign research shows that the parent-child relationship of Internet addiction adolescents is significantly lower than that of non-internet addicts, and domestic studies have confirmed that parent-child relationship, especially paternity, can predict the degree of internet addiction among teenagers. In other words, a child's sense of loneliness in the family makes internet addiction a habit. Unfortunately, parents only see the network to make children bad, but seldom reflect on how they do, thought the correction of the child is all right, but this may cause a deeper parent-child rift and confrontation. In fact, what children need most is to work with them to solve problems, not to equate them with problems.

In fact, if a child is addicted to learning and is addicted to playing the piano, it will not only lead to parental criticism, but may even be a dream for many parents, because these "addictions" can bring benefits to the child's future. Although internet addiction and these "addiction" can not be compared, but sometimes it is precisely because we are too utilitarian requirements for children-only concerned that they do well, but do not care how they live, so that they feel like the tools of their parents, and the network has become a depressed export, spiritual comfort and even eventually become a way to fight parents.

In the face of teenage internet addiction, rather than blindly worry and crusade, we may be more likely to stoop to communicate and cooperate with children, so that their real world from the bone to become plump. In the final analysis, no one can say no to a good life, whether adults or children.

The confusion of internet addiction---Wang Bing, PhD in Mental Health, Peking University