Most societies are marked by one or more characteristic, high-profile addictions: khat in Yemen, for example, coca leaves in Bolivia, vodka in Russia, etc. Some might be tempted to add “weed in the Netherlands” to that list, but apparently that really isn’t true anymore.

How about “video games” instead? The Dutch newspaper Trouw has a piece up now about that. (Game industry must warn against addiction; it’s credited to the Novum news agency, based in Amsterdam, of which I had never heard before.) Its starting-point is a recent report from the Rotterdam-based research bureau IVO, which must be an interesting place to work since it indeed specializes in “lifestyle” and addiction issues. (Check out its English page here, and you can download their video game report here, although it’s in Dutch and they’ll first ask you to enter some information about yourself.) IVO claims that the gaming industry is shirking its public responsibility by doing nothing to counteract video game addiction. In the meantime, the estimated number of such addicts in the Netherlands has reached between 30,000 and 80,000 (out of a population of 16 million).

Not only is that a conclusion that these companies don’t enjoy having made public, but IVO conducted the report in the first place on a commission from the Dutch Ministry of Health. Reaction has been swift from the NVPI, the Dutch industry association for “the entertainment industry.” Yes we do act against addiction, a spokesman claimed: we put recommended-age indications on the boxes of all such games, together with additional warnings if they involve such nasty things as sex, drugs, or violence. What else can you do?

That’s a valid point: what else? A further action discussed here is putting on some sort of “Watch out! This game can be addictive!” warning-label on as well. But that won’t work because 1) It’s lame; 2) If it has any effect, it will merely attract more buyers; and 3) For most players by far, the game will turn out not to be addicting.

Good news from the German pressetext website: On-line addiction – China stops electro-shock therapy. The Chinese (meaning, of course, from the People’s Republic) have for a while now been alarmed at the epidemic of Internet-addiction that has been plaguing their citizens, which scourge should be no surprise in view of the fact that the number of Chinese Internet users now exceeds even the total US population. As you might imagine, this overwhelmingly afflicts the young, and yes, the Chinese authorities’ solution has mainly been some electro-shock therapy, which to this observer does seem both rather harsh and questionable on sheer grounds of effectiveness (unless it’s just a matter of pure deterrence: “We catch you playing World of Warcraft again and its the electrodes for you!”). Indeed, according to this report the Chinese take this method one step further: “patients” must also get on their knees before their parents for “therapy” and are allowed to speak of nothing else other than their determination to beat their addiction.

Now the Health Ministry has announce this sort of “treatment” will be stopped. Ironically enough (and, frankly, also implausibly), it is supposedly doing so due to a huge wave of protest against the practice that has welled up over the Internet, of which a crucial component is expressions of doubts from actual psychology experts that such extreme methods really work at all. That’s also the opinion here of Bernd Dillinger, who is involved with an Austrian anti-Internet-addiction treatment site, the Institute for the Prevention of Online Addiction, who states “That they try in China to cure online-addicts with electro-shocks is completely incomprehensible to me personally. Such a procedure is in fact only possible in totalitarian states, among us it would be unthinkable.”

So what is appropriate treatment? Well, they’re still trying to come up with one that can be generally accepted, but at this point experts can already agree that the problem should be treated in a “value-less” way, i.e. assigning no blame, and that attractive alternative activities should be brought forward to engage the patient’s leisure-time. Naturally, this is not only a problem among the Chinese; estimates of how many Internet-addicts there are in German-speaking countries are still imprecise, but Dillinger assesses the total at around 1.5% to 3% of all Internet users.

UPDATE: Here’s a new report from the AP: yes, they’ve stopped the electro-shock therapy to treat Internet addiction in China, but people are dying at their “boot camp”-style treatment camps nonetheless!