The ill effects of “opium for the spirit”: a critical cultural analysis of China's Internet addiction moral panic

Abstract

This article examines the crisis over Internet gaming and Internet addiction in China through the lens of moral panic theory. In addition to comparing the Chinese situation to other crises over youth and technology, the uniquely Chinese attributes of this crisis are discussed. As will be shown, the emphasis on moral culture in China provides particularly fertile breeding ground for panics of this sort. Furthermore, the rhetoric employed by the media references other distinct crises over youth, westernization and morality in China's past, thus situating these contemporary problems within an extended narrative about the struggle to establish a “civilized” but uniquely Chinese modern state. An analysis of the various actors involved in the creation and development of the crisis reveals power dynamics and class issues that lie hidden within the discourse. Finally, the impact of new media and the material consequences of the media-driven Internet addiction crisis are addressed.

Keywords:

• China
• Internet addiction
• Internet games
• moral panic
• youth

Notes

^1. The Chinese government was not the first to declare the existence of Internet addiction. Rather, the term is commonly traced back to American scholars Ivan Goldberg and Kimberly Young (Lan, 2010; Xi, 2009). Also, it should be noted that this paper makes no claim as to whether or not Internet addiction is a “real” clinical disorder, but acknowledges that addiction studies scholars increasingly believe behavioral addiction is a “hybrid entity” that is not “just about discourses, identities and labels”, but is also the result of biological factors (Vrecko, 2010).

^2. In American academia, “media effects” scholars have perpetuated the notion that new media is disruptive to social life (see Meyrowitz, 1985; Oldenburg, 1999; Putnam, 2000). In the popular media, reports spur fears about the effects of violent video games, online predators, and access to pornography. A growing body of academic literature addresses these various moral panics (boyd, 2008; Cassell and Cramer, 2008; Jenkins, 2006b; Marwick, 2008; Potter & Potter, 2001; Valentine & Holloway, 2001; Wall, 2008).

^3. Sohu's Internet addiction center, http://health.sohu.com/s2006/wangyin/, and http://www.jwyin.com are examples of two websites that employ the “opium for the spirit” metaphor.

^4. For more on Internet cafés as social leisure spaces, see Lin, 2005; Lindtner et al., 2008; F. Liu, 2009; Szablewicz, 2004.

^5. In Japan, for example, a similar situation occurred. When the press revealed that infamous Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki had a obsession with manga, it lead to a “new public perception, that young people involved with amateur manga are dangerous, psychologically-disturbed perverts” (Kinsella, 1998, p. 310). Ito (2006) notes that, as a result of this characterization, young people's perception of manga as a hobby also changed. Rather than seeing manga as a “cool” activity, it became a “serious social problem” and as such many youth involved in manga became ashamed of their activities, keeping them hidden from family members and friends.

^6. For a preliminary discussion of ethnographic research on this topic see Lindtner and Szablewicz (in press).