{"id":17857,"date":"2014-10-20T18:10:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T18:10:23","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T01:11:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T01:11:02","slug":"web-junkie-talks-internet-obsession-and-of-course-they-re-asian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=17857","title":{"rendered":"‘Web Junkie” talks internet obsession and of course, they’re Asian!"},"content":{"rendered":"

China is the first country to label “Internet addiction” a clinical disorder.<\/strong> With extraordinary intimacy, Web Junkie investigates a Beijing rehab center where Chinese teenagers are deprogrammed, focusing on three teens, their parents and the health professionals determined to help them kick their habit.<\/p>\n

Brief and timely, this documentary directed by Shosh Shlam and Hilla Medalia is also frustrating.<\/strong> The setting is a division of a Beijing military hospital, where teenage boys are being treated for Internet addiction \u2014 more specifically, addiction to \u201cWorld of Warcraft\u201d and other games like it.<\/p>\n

Anybody who\u2019s had to peel a child\u2019s hands off a keyboard can sympathize with these parents wailing that their game-obsessed son isn\u2019t eating or sleeping for days \u2014 one teen even admits to wearing a diaper. But it\u2019s soon obvious that locking boys in a hideous institution to stare at bare walls is unlikely to persuade them of the joys of real life. \u201cIt\u2019s already not working,\u201d remarks one kid.<\/p>\n

The film is fascinating and often darkly funny, but it\u2019s hard not to wish for some actual analysis to flesh out the many scenes of grim people in gray rehab.
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