Curing Internet Addiction at the Adolescent Psychological Development Base, Beijing, China

Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, found on Baidu Maps

As I work in IT, I have always been fascinated by internet addiction. While in the West we do not seem to have many formal programs to counter internet addiction, China has gone the radical route of military style boot camps. One such institution is the Adolescent Psychological Development Base, Beijing, run by Tao Ran, an ex-army psychologist.

The article says that the Adolescent Psychological Development Base charges about 10,000 yuan a month per patient and was set up in 2003. It has been running for 16 years? While I cannot dispute the article I thought it important to research the location of this institution and see if it really exists.

The Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地. The address given was 北京市大兴区北京卫戍区, somewhere in the DaXing district of Beijing, which did not give me a location, but I plugged the institution name into Baidu Maps and got

中国青少年心理成长基地,
北京市大兴区黄村镇通黄路12号,
电话:010-69261044
GPS: 39.721541, 116.367066
Plus Code: 8PFRP9C8+JV

The map led me to the Beijing Tongjun Zhongyiyuan, the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital, the same location published in the article. It looks like the Adolescent Psychological Development Base is part of this hospital.

The Chinese Youth Psychological Growth Base is the first institution in China established by the Beijing Military Region General Hospital to integrate psychology, medicine, education, military training and family, and to help young people’s mental health. The base is fully supported by the Central Civilization Office, the National Care Youth Next Generation Committee, the Ministry of Education, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other relevant state agencies, and forms a research and development community with state-level news media, first-class medical units and educational institutions.

中国青少年心理成长基地是北京军区总医院成立的国内首家集心理、医学、教育、军训、家庭为一体，全面帮助青少年心理健康成长的机构。该基地受到中央文明办、国家关怀青少年下一代委员会、教育部、中国社科院等有关国家机关的全力支持，与国家级新闻媒体、一流的医疗单位和教育机构结成研发共同体 source

Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, SCMP Photo

Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, found on Baidu Maps

Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, satellite map, Baidu

Adolescent Psychological Development Base 中国青少年心理成长基地, part of the Beijing Tongjun Chinese medicine hospital 北京桐君中医院, in Daxing District, satellite map, Google

Of course the Google Map GPS coordinates of 39.721556, 116.367056 are slightly different from the Baidu Map, due to Chinese national security policy.

I am, nevertheless, happy to find it on both Baidu and Google Maps.

Inside a Chinese internet addiction camp

Pretty much all of kids were from rich families, as the treatment is incredibly expensive. Most of the parents were working incredibly hard to make money. They had very busy jobs and sometimes the parents were working away from home. It was a recurring theme that they have emotionally neglected their children and a lot of them were blaming themselves for this.