Schadenfreude: Boot camps to “cure” videogame addiction in China

I’ve been watching WoW addiction confessions on YouTube for the past few hours already, and let me tell you, there’s an odd sense of guilty satisfaction. Guilt, because I know how it feels to be addicted to a game and actually lose hours I could’ve spent on something productive. More importantly, I feel guilt because there’s this sick sense of joy in seeing that other folks got it worse than I did.

They didn’t just drop out of school – they lost friends, and they got disconnected with family. They ruined some of the more permanent things in life, over something that was designed to be a pastime. Over something that was meant to compliment life and not take over it. I go: “Ha! Loser!” Yes, I know it’s not nice. Schadenfreude, is the appropriate term, I think.

As much as I’d like to post those videos, I won’t. They’re pretty common place in the intertubes and I believe they’ll just bore you. Instead I’ll post a video that’ll make you folks go: “Ha sucks to be them!” Remember all those times your parents threatened to send you to boot camp if you didn’t straighten out but didn’t actually? Well, these Chinese kids aren’t as lucky as you are:

C’mon. Laugh all you want. They’ll never know you were laughing at them.

Guilty pleasures aside, what’s your take on this? Is China going a step too far? It’s not like they don’t already have measures (systems that kill your character if you play too long) against addiction, do they really need de-programming camps stocked with pseudo-shock-therapy-acupuncture equipment?

I’ve been watching WoW addiction confessions on YouTube for the past few hours already, and let me tell you, there’s an odd sense of guilty satisfaction. Guilt, because I know how it feels to be addicted to a game and actually lose hours I could’ve spent on something productive. More importantly, I feel guilt because there’s this sick sense of joy in seeing that other folks got it worse than I did.

They didn’t just drop out of school – they lost friends, and they got disconnected with family. They ruined some of the more permanent things in life, over something that was designed to be a pastime. Over something that was meant to compliment life and not take over it. I go: “Ha! Loser!” Yes, I know it’s not nice. Schadenfreude, is the appropriate term, I think.

As much as I’d like to post those videos, I won’t. They’re pretty common place in the intertubes and I believe they’ll just bore you. Instead I’ll post a video that’ll make you folks go: “Ha sucks to be them!” Remember all those times your parents threatened to send you to boot camp if you didn’t straighten out but didn’t actually? Well, these Chinese kids aren’t as lucky as you are:

C’mon. Laugh all you want. They’ll never know you were laughing at them.

Guilty pleasures aside, what’s your take on this? Is China going a step too far? It’s not like they don’t already have measures (systems that kill your character if you play too long) against addiction, do they really need de-programming camps stocked with pseudo-shock-therapy-acupuncture equipment?