WEB JUNKIE @ Sundance 2014

China does nothing on a small scale. The Government has established 400 rehabilitation and treatment centers to ‘cure’ what they claim is over 24 million young people of compulsive Internet use … or as they crudely term it ‘electronic heroin’. This eye-opening documentary looks at just one of these military type camps and how it goes about trying to wean the teenagers off their addiction.

Most of the tearful kids have been forced or tricked into being committed by their parents ..’I thought we were going skiing in Russia’ one cried.  They are angry and frustrated, something they let out at the joint therapy sessions they are made to have with their parents, supervised by earnest female doctors who look almost as young as their charges. 

Part clinic, part school, part boot camp, the parents have to pay what is twice the average Beijing salary (10,000 yuans) for their offspring to be ‘cured’.  They claim that this really is their last resort as their kids skip school and spend days/weeks doing nothing else than play video games.  The extreme ones even wear nappies so that they never ever have to take a break from playing. 

At the beginning of their three month stay most of the kids show no remorse at all, and without exception claim that they cannot/will not give up their addiction. As one of them explained so succinctly, to them virtual life IS reality! And in the therapy sessions as the Doctors start to probe deeper, the whole Chinese culture of one child per family starts to emerge as one of the main causes of these kids attitudes.  It often appeared that when parents put all of their own personal aspirations onto their only offspring and exerting so much pressure for them to succeed academically, it is at the expense of having any sort of natural loving communication between father/mother and son. 

It was however hard to see from this film if this treatment of computer addiction as a clinical disorder was effective or not.  Most of the young boys were bright enough to eventual learn to give the expected responses to the Doctors that they knew would speed up their release. In fact the movie deliberately ends on a high point as we see one of them finally being allowed to leave with his parents, although I have this sneaking suspicion he will soon revert back to his old ways.

I started out watching this documentary actually thinking how very cruel and inhumane the whole situation was, but if this really is a problem of such epidemic proportions, I simply have no idea what an alternative solution should, or could, be.

Its an excellent and fascinating documentary by filmmakers Shosh Shlam & Hilla Medalia  that made compelling viewing and could become as addictive as it subject.

★★★★★★★★