ABSTRACT
Let us return back to Xiao Wang's letter sent to Tao Hongkai, the first part of which was introduced at the beginning of Chapter Two. Doing so allows us to move beyond merely the overt symptoms he expressed in the first part, and which the Young-Tao model overly focuses upon, and toward both a more contextual understanding of Xiao Wang's social existence and the theory and method used in this book as a way to make sense of the offline and online lifeworld of these “cultural rebels” called internet addicts. Here is part two:
I feel that the pressure in reality is getting more and more, I also cannot say specifically what this pressure is, I just always feel that this pressure is great! In summary, I am infatuated with “the internet” approximately because in the virtual world I can find a sense of satisfaction and freedom. Inside the internet I simply don't know what is pressure or worry. I am able to say and do whatever I like, and no one is going to discriminate against me as everyone online seems equal, and so in cyberspace you can feel like an emperor. I don't receive any restriction/obligation there. The friends in cyberspace really stick together through thick and thin, and so I feel that my friends online are the only ones I can consider to be real friends. But in reality? It is really difficult to accept! Like this I have broken away from reality.
Oh, I forget to mention some things! This is my personal situation. My body is quite fat, my height is 180 cm, and my weight is 115 kgs, which is regarded as a “big fatty”! Fat people are a group where it is easy to be discriminated against by other people, so where can you go? You can feel people's abnormal looks towards fat people! But inside games this situation does not emerge. In the real world I absolutely don't love to show my face where there are lots of people, for fear that people will make fun of me. Even though there are people who speak nicely, people aren't perfect. Each has their own good points. I really don't know where my own good points are. Sometimes I quietly think about such things, and the more I think the more scared I get! I am about to be 20. I still have no special skill, later I will need to get married and start a career, and support a family to keep body and soul together? But at the moment what skills do I have? What can I study now? I ask you to tell me, am I really a person that no medicine can save? Isn't it too late to study anything? Tell me!!! I am sorry, writing is making me agitated.
I feel that there is this nameless pressure that is too great, which also makes it hard to breathe, and sometimes I think that I am on the road to ruin! I really think it is worth dying! But I know that it cannot solve the problems. My mind is in a great contradiction!
Now I don't know what is good! Now I want to go to the internet bar.
