Chinese Sociologist Claims Online Gaming Addiction Destroying Lives, IQs

A Chinese sociologist is attacking internet gaming for its role in the decline of civilization.

Tao Hongkai, a professor at Huazhong Normal University, claims that studies in over 100 Chinese cities have shown that 70 percent of juvenile delinquent behavior can be blamed on internet addiction. In an article in the English-language Shanghai Daily, he said that number was “easy to understand, given that 80 percent of online videogames have violent, pornographic or fraudulent elements.” College students are hit especially hard, according to his numbers; a survey of 13 colleges found that 90 percent of flunk-outs are the result of internet addiction.

Online game companies “are bringing calamity to the country and the people, but some of them end up being held up as outstanding enterprises!” Tao said, adding, “It is a colossal mistake for a few officials from some departments to lend their support to the development of internet games.” The article ends by comparing online game publishers to heroin dealers, and says, “Unless these providers are out of their businesses, we should probably be prepared for more tales of studies, careers, marriages and lives being ruined by the games.”

Tao had previously been quoted as saying teenagers will lose 10 percent of their IQ after three years of online game addiction, rendering them “abnormal.”