The Prevention Research On Migrant Children’s Internet Addiction From Social Work Perspective

The Sixth National Population Census’s date indicate that China’s migrant population has already reached261million. According to China Children and Teenagers Fund’s report, China has roughly18.83million migrant children, with more than a quarter of them addicted to the internet. The phenomenon of internet addictive disorder (IAD) is increasingly prevailing among the migrant children. Based on the background, this study attempts to carry out a research on the prevention and correction of the migrant children’s internet addictive disorder in order to avoid the potential harm to the migrant children’s physical, mental and social wellbeing. This study has two aims, the first aim is to reduce the risk and harm of the migrant children’s internet addiction to ensure their healthy growth, the second aim is to explore the approach of social work service in the field of internet addiction to enrich social work practice.Based on the Social Cognitive Theory and the Cognition and Behavior Theory, and the project of New Little Guangzhounese, this study endeavors to provide the internet addiction prevention and correction service catering to the practical need of the migrant children. The study selects D Integrated Family Service Centre as the practice place for it is located in Guangzhou which has a large migrant population. This study includes three phases:needs assessment, project design and implementation, and project evaluation. This study adopts the combinative methods of qualitative and quantitative, the needs assessment is accomplished through analyzing the data gathered from questionnaire survey and interview in order to gain a clear picture of the migrant children’s internet dependence degree and their corresponding demand for social service and to design a proper service plan. Based on the needs assessment, project design and implementation is realized by selecting the members for the experimental group and the control group and designing the following serial group activities for the experimental group:Know Each Other, Knowledge about the Internet, Surf the Internet in Moderation, Computer Skill Training, Have Fun without a Computer and Imagine the Future. Through the six group activities, the group members have obtained a more rational understanding of the internet, have diversified their internet activities and have improved their computer skills, thus gradually forming healthy internet habits. What’s more, the group members have built trust with each other and have obtained friendship. During the evaluation phase, the process evaluation of this project is carried out from the different perspectives of social worker, volunteer and group member; the result evaluation is made by analyzing the group members’cognitive and behavioral changes on the basis of their pretest and posttest data to quantize the service effect and, in the meantime, by analyzing the cohort data of the experimental group and the control group to observe the migrant children’s cross-sectional change in their internet addiction; and the follow-up service is used to assess the persistence of the service effect.The results of this study suggest that the migrant children have a prominent tendency of internet addictive disorder:the average internet addiction degree of the migrant children is about36, close to40which is the red line of internet addiction; and there are34.09%of the migrant children having mild or moderate internet addiction.Through the pretest and posttest data from the experimental group and the control group before and after group work, we can draw a conclusion from this study that social work on migrant children’s internet addiction is an effective service mode:(1) Variation in the pretest and posttest data of the experimental group and the control group indicates that the service of social work has inhibitory effect on migrant children’s internet addiction:the average internet addiction degree of the experimental group members reduces from38.750to35.125through implementing this project while that of the control group members rises from37.125to44.625;(2) The cognition and behavior of the experimental group members about internet addiction are improved:in terms of cognition, the proportion of "be eager to surf the internet everyday" thought has reduced by12.5%, and for the motivation of surfing the internet, the proportion of "to learn computer skills" has increased by67.5%while "to read the news,watch the pictures and so on" has increased by50%; in terms of behavior, the proportion of group members whose time for surfing the internet is"within a hour" has increased by12.5%, while "3to4hours" has reduced by12.5%. What’s more, the proportion of group members who surf the internet for "charting and making friends has reduced by12.5%and "listening to music or watching movies" has reduced by25%. In contrast, the proportions of surfing the internet for "finding the learning materials" and "learning the computer skills" have increased by37.5%and12.5%respectively;(3)The feedback information from the experimental group members suggests that the group members are very satisfied with the group activities:87.5%of the members are highly satisfied with "goal achievement""activity time" and "the form and site of activity" while12.5%of them are partly satisfied with them. The part of game and sharing got100%high satisfaction while the part of computer lessons got75%high satisfaction and25%part satisfaction.This study acquires tremendous support and active cooperation from migrant children, their parents, the foundation, volunteers and the media, which ensures the effectiveness of this project. Results of the present study shows the service mode of social work for migrant children’s internet addiction does have effect, and can promote the social management, but during the application process, we should pay attention to the localization of this approach, and make efforts to promote the service mode of social work.