Computers have caused another death here in China. This time this victim was from Jinzhou (either our Jinzhou or another outside Dalian). The China Daily article reports
The 26-year-old man, surnamed Zhang from Jinzhou, collapsed on February 24, the last day of the week-long Spring Festival holiday, after hours of non-stop online gaming.
A doctor from the Liaoning Medical College blamed “overwork and obesity” as the cause of Zhang’s death.
An Internet addict, Zhang spent almost all his time playing online games during the seven-day holiday instead of sleeping and visiting relatives, his parents said.
Curiously, the article doesn’t mention Mr. Zhang’s profession. He’s 26, so he probably isn’t a student. Since both Jinzhoi are pretty far from Shenyang, it doesn’t look like he went home for the holidays at all.
It’s just a guess, but Mr. Zhang might have been working…as a gold farmer.
I wasn’t aware of this phenomenon until coming to China, where public online gaming is so popular. Apparently, the early lives of characters in games like World of Warcraft (WoW) can be pretty boring. So wealthy players are outsourcing the more mundane tasks to the ranks of the lower paid. This IHT article has more.
The people working at this clandestine locale are called “gold farmers.” Every day, in 12-hour shifts, they kill monsters and harvest “gold coins” and other virtual goods that they can sell to other online gamers. From Seoul to San Francisco, gamers who lack the hours or the patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom, are hiring young Chinese to play the early rounds for them.
“For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, me and my colleagues are killing monsters,” said a 23-year-old gamer who works in the makeshift factory and goes by the online code-name “Wandering.”
“I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good, compared to the other jobs I’ve had,” he said. “And I can play games all day.”
This YouTube video is a teaser for a documentary on the subject.
If you’re interested in the economies of fantasy worlds, this article on EverQuest is required reading.
In the international version of the story, Mr. Zhang’s death is linked to an epidemic.
China has seen an alarming rise in the number of teenage and young adult Internet addicts in recent years, despite attempts to restrict minors from cybercafes and limit online game playing times.
About 2.6 million — or 13 percent — of China’s 20 million Internet users under 18 are classed as addicts, state media have reported.
2.6 million. Wow! WoW is the new opium.
In this China Daily ad for Windows Vista article, Bill Gates offers his own child rearing strategy; limit computer use to 45 minutes a day.
Pay somebody else to do the rest.
5 Comments
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Internet addictions are indeed a major problem in China. I think part of the problem stems from the perception of computers in the parent’s eyes. Most people in China still perceive the computer as a toy rather than a tool, and thus often overlook the positive uses, instead focusing on the negative ones. Most parents think of computers as wasting valuable time, rather than considering how they can be a valuable tool in education, and expand their young children’s mind…and who can blame them? Go to any netbar in China and 95 percent of the patrons will be doing nothing more than QQ and playing games. If all the energy spent on gaming and QQ was turned towards more productive computing, imagine the output!
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Welcome, Ben.
Thanks for stopping in. I’m really enjoying your site. As for suggestions for names…how about Ross Gloss (with gloss as annotation or interpretation)? Perhaps, Steamed Ben?
I’m still wondering about how - actually, whether - computers EXPAND minds. I’ll agree they CAN be a valuable tool in education, but most implementation I’ve seen has been more bells-n-whistles to impress the PTA than substantive improvement over books and conversation.
And as for productive computing and output, I’m raising my glass to reduced output in a more efficient, less consumptive fashion.
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Joshua-
You bring up a good point about computers. Back in the good ‘ol 1980’s when I was in elementary school, the conventional wisdom that learning computers was “good for” students, but nobody really seemed to understand how to apply this to education. Looking back, a good deal of our time in front of the screen was spent playing Number Munchers and Oregon Trail. Other than teaching us how to use a keyboard and a disk drive, it was pretty much worthless from an educational perspective. However, I think in today’s age, being able to use a computer in the right way can certainly expand one’s educational experience. It’s all about how it’s presented. I remember when I was teaching English at a Chinese university, and few of my students even knew how to use Google or Microsoft Word, yet you could put them in front of a game of Counterstrike, and they would play it like it was going out of style.
When students would ask me the old question “How do I improve my English?” I would tell them to get an AIM or Skype account and chat with foreigners online, or to find an English webpage they liked related to one of their interests (i.e. espn.com, cnn.com. rollingstone.com etc.), and start read it regularly. I had several students tell me that they had mentioned this to one of their older Chinese English teachers. He had told them definitely that the computer was a waste of time, and that they would be better off memorizing Chinglish articles from their textbook. aiiiiyaaa!
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Hmm, I wonder how many of the 网虫 web insects frequenting average web cafes are actually doing it for pay? They generally don’t look terribly healthy. On a lighter note someone in Beijing is making a cute show about an imaginary “University of Warcraft” and posting it on tudou.com as a series of podcasts:
长舟丫
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@长舟丫: I doubt many are. It’d be pretty silly to spend all that time working and have to pay someone else regular rates (1-3 RMB/hour) for internet access.
Thanks for the link. We aren’t the accomplished students you are (so we can’t follow the Chinese), but I was really impressed with the production quality.
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Silcosis Takes Hold…
Computer games in China the new opium of the masses…Great expose on a troubling problem…….