Investigation Into Lanzhou Teenagers' Addiction To Network

Internet has brought great changes to people's life style, learning style and the style of interpersonal communication. Teenagers are a group of people whose self-protection awareness and self-control are relatively low. And they are vulnerable to adverse content on the internet, such as erotic information, violence game and so on and become indulged in the internet and eventually addicted to the internet. According to the pilot survey carried out by Chinese Youth Association for Network in July 2005, the number of network-addiction teenagers in Lanzhou, Gansu province was on the top. The phenomenon has aroused the author's interest and with the support of the postgraduate innovation subject-- Investigation into Lanzhou Teenagers'Addiction to Network, of Northwest University for Nationalities, the author has made further research on the issue.On the bases of interviews and investigations, 6 influential and large-scale internet bars were selected and people between the age of 16 and 25 who went online in the 6 bars were investigated. The number of the people investigated was 300, among them 150 were male and 150 were female. 50 people were selected from each bar. The investigation was carried out through questionnaires in combination with interviews, which, to a great extent, guaranteed the validity and reliability of the investigation. The results of the investigation are as follows:1. Teenagers spend a lot of time in going online;2. Teenagers'entertainment tendency is obvious when going online. Male teenagers who go online just to play network games take up 73% of the teenagers investigated; female teenagers take up 69%;3. Male teenagers with network-addiction take up 13.6% of the total number investigated while female take up 6.7% in Lanzhou, which is higher than the national level;4. For more than 70% teenagers, the fee for going online is from their families and among these families more than 80% parents do not know the truth;5. The internet bars in Lanzhou do not execute the anti-indulgence system and real-name system for the internet;6. The basic types of Lanzhou teenagers'network-addiction include cybersex addiction, cyber-relationship addiction, online game addiction disorder, information overload and impulsion of going online.The paper also discusses the harm and causes of teenagers'network-addiction and provides the countermeasures for the prevention and correction of the network-addiction. The harm of teenagers'network-addiction is mainly reflected in the following aspects: the harm to teenagers'body and mind, study, work, consciousness of personality, thoughts, and the increase of the economic load to their families. The network-addiction may even lead to adolescents'criminal offence. It is found that the causes of teenagers'network-addiction include adolescent influence, the purposeful induction of the designers of network games, individual factors and the absence of entertainment. The countermeasures are as follows: the society should provide a good macro environment for teenagers'healthy growth; schools should fully play their educational function and strengthen the education and prevention; parents should optimize the education environment; individuals should raise self accomplishment. The research results are not only of academic value but can do well to the society as well.