According to Thursday's Beijing Morning Post, autism, obsessions with on-line romances, electronic games and pornography have increasingly become the four most serious psychological conditions suffered by middle-school "net bugs".

About 80.8 percent of Beijing middle-school students surveyed have turned to the Internet, the paper noted. Of those, it added, 56.1 percent surfed on the net for more than one hour and less than four hours at a time.

Another survey cited by the paper noted that about 10 percent of the 17,000 net surfers polled suffered withdrawal symptoms, such as having a sense of aimlessness, downheartedness and even depression, if they could not get access to the Internet. And approximately 30 percent said they surfed to escape reality.

Gao Zizhong, head of the Education Committee of the western Xuanwu District in Beijing Municipality, said that setting up on-line chat rooms at the No. 15 Middle School and other schools was an optional idea.

It would allow students to talk and confer freely on the ethics of the Internet and encourage ideas for self-discipline.

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2002)