Internet Fasting Camps Proposed For Japanese Kids to Deal with Internet Addiction

‘Internet addiction’, a hitherto unknown term, is fast becoming a cause of serious alarm all over the world.

There are millions of people around the globe who are simply addicted to the world wide web and find it difficult to stay off it for too long. The youth brigade is the hardest hit, causing worried behavior experts to initiate studies on the topic.

A study conducted recently among a large sample group of more than 98,000 youngsters, revealed that nearly 8.1% of them were pathologically addicted to the net.

Nine percent of middle-schoolers and 15 percent of high-schoolers spend more than five hours on the Internet each week day, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Japanese recently found out that more than 518,000 of their middle and high school students are hooked on to the web, leading to sleep related disorders and poor eating habits among them. Following this startling discovery, they have proposed to set up internet fasting camps where the kids will be encouraged to stay off all smart phones, video games, computers and other forms of internet access.

Expressing concern over the issue, Akifumi Sekine, a spokesman for the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, told The Daily Telegraph that, “It’s becoming more and more of a problem.”

Worse still, the figures are rising with every passing day. The half a million figure which is all set for a sharp and sudden hike in the coming decade has set the brilliant Japanese brains into thinking of a possible way out to beat the internet addiction.

At these internet fasting camps, kids will be urged to take up outdoor activities and play other indoor games which do not require them to be logged on to the internet.

The Japanese government deserves a pat on the back for being concerned about the well being of its youth.

Interestingly, many European countries have a much higher rate of internet addiction without their governments giving it much thought.

Country	Rate of Internet Addiction among the youth
Spain	21.3%
Romania	16%
Poland	12%
Netherlands	11.4%
Greece	11%

If the Japanese experiment with the ‘internet fasting camps’ yields tangible results, many more countries might follow in their footsteps.

Conclusion
Do YOU think such camps will work?

What, apart from such camps where the kids will be weaned away from the internet and enlightened about the heavy toll the addiction to it is taking on their mental and physical well being, is the alternative?