About half of the young people who become addicted to surfing the Internet suffered some sort of major psychological setback in their childhoods, the results of a survey have shown.

The results of a survey of 641 young Internet addicts were released in Wuhan at the recently concluded annual conference on subject that was hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology.

The conference's goal is to formulate strategies to prevent addiction to Internet games among young people.

From April 2006 until February this year, researchers surveyed 641 young Internet addicts who were staying at the General Hospital of Beijing Military Area's department of psychological addiction diseases.

The results of the survey showed that factors such as family life, school and social environment play a major role in determining whether a young person is susceptible to Internet addiction.

Family influence is the single most important factor in such addictions.

About 46 percent of the young people involved in the survey said they had had unhappy childhoods or faced serious calamities.

They said they could clearly recall traumatic events and their family members' reactions to them.

"Their psychological development was damaged, so they naturally have trouble trusting other people and are unable to build intimate relationships," Tao Ran, the director of the military hospital and the survey's lead researcher, said. "These factors can lead to the development of an addiction."

The results of the survey also showed that 94.5 percent of the respondents were angry at their parents, and 52.3 percent said their family lives lacked warmth and understanding.

About half of the respondents came from affluent families.

Tao said half of the young people's parents earned between 1,000 yuan (US$130) and 3,000 yuan a month, which is higher than the national average.

Almost 80 percent of the respondents were only-children.

"The children of relatively affluent families or single-child families are generally more egotistical and self-centered," Tao said.

Only 11 of the young people involved in the survey were from rural areas.

However, Tao said this did not mean that the problem of Internet addiction was not severe outside of cities.

He said few families in rural areas send their children to hospital when they have psychological problems caused by Internet addiction.

Tao and his investigative team also visited 54 counties and towns and discovered they all had at least one Internet cafe.

He said Internet addiction among young people in rural areas is more serious than in cities.

"Internet addiction is as serious as an alcohol, cigarette or drug addiction," Tao said.

Learning at home is the first step to leading young people back to a healthy lifestyle. However, schools and society at large should play an active supporting role too, he said.

(China Daily September 21, 2007)