Some campers had a better time than others.
Because Chinese Internet Addiction Camps are such a great idea (see my article here), we Americans decided to give it a whirl and open up the reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Camp in the mountains of Washington state. It’s the first ever American Internet Addiction Camp! You knew it had to happen! Wheeee!
For a mere $14,500 (plus incidentals) for a 45 day stay, 18-28 year-old Internet trolls and Twitter geeks alike can catch some fresh air and sun to dry out that greasy complexion and get a little color in their cheeks. Now Rupert and Sylvia Richfokker has a place they can send their brat Rupert Junior the Third when he spends a little too much time in front of the tube. Oh, and if you’re 29? Sorry, you’re fokked.
Obviously being within the continental United States, the camp focuses more on the 12-step program style recovery versus the Chinese labor camp “beatings-until-morale-improves” physical exhaustion method. With a schedule running from 7AM to 10:30PM with such fun-filled nature activities as “Chores” and “Mindfulness”, I can’t imagine any teenager not completely giving up the internet after they leave here.
While I was researching this, my mind wandered down the rabbit hole a bit, and I wondered what life would personally be like with no internet, no video games, no…joy or happiness. You know, all the blips and boops that enrich my current life? I tried to imagine a world where I didn’t have any of that.
As I realized that not only was I enjoying my own personal “life well wasted”, but the reality of a world without computers stepped in. I work at a desk with a computer on it with a connection to the internet. Phones have internet browsers embedded in them. Anymore, just about everything everywhere has a damn computer attached to it somehow.
It would be one thing to go to a camp like this for a year or several years, then come back into a society cut off from the internet. But that’s not the case at all: internet pervades almost every facet of society, and living without it seems near impossible. Good luck finding a place without internet and not living in the mountains of Montana like the Unabomber.
In the end, it’s like sending heroin addicts to a rehab center, then within 20 minutes of their release, start reintroducing heroin in small doses back into their system. There’s very little escape from the internet, so how in the sodding hell do they expect such a short camp, ultra expensive camp to do any good?
Wait a minute. I’m researching this camp online. According to the site, as I’m writing this, there are 76 people on the site with me. The site has a tab at the top marked “Social Network”, where it talks about how you can follow them on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter! That works out great! You leave the camp internet-free and ready to go back to life as a more responsible, less plugged-in person, and when you get back home to your Macbook, you can follow your camp counselors and new friends as if you had never been there in the first place!
Here’s the reSTART website, should you decide that it’s time to commit yourself to not only a healthier lifestyle, but a life of severe financial debt!
http://www.netaddictionrecovery.com/
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lolwut?
The thing is, the camp does not have to do much in the way of training their ‘clients’ out of their ‘addiction’. Several years ago a Dr. Maxwell Maltz figured out that it took roughly 21 days for the brain to form new engrams (memory traces) to accept a new habit. Hence if these ‘addicts’ are not allowed internet access for the 45 days, their brains have been re-wired to be out of the habit to constantly be online. The camp can simply give their clients do-nothing activities, and the brain does all the work.
However, as you said the internet is everywhere. Also, where are all these kid’s friends? The Internet. So your assessment of them falling right back into ‘Internet addiction’ is very true. I would agree that this camp is a total waste of funds and is simply preying on parent’s fears that Little Jimmy is spending too much time in a virtual world that they do not understand.
OMGLOL, I KNO RITE?
Oh, wait, I meant “Well put, Kojin.”