ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I attempt to give a voice to Chinese officials – and attempt to construct the narrative of internet addiction and public health through Chinese eyes. That is, utilizing a post-modern stance, I suggest that there are actually several quite different narratives that can be constructed to answer the question, “Does China have an internet addiction epidemic and is internet addiction actually a threat?” Here, I suggest that where you stand depends on where you sit. That is, both risk perceptions and actual measurements of the severity and amount of risk associated with a new technology may vary greatly from one cultural, social and political context to another. Thus the case can be made that perhaps internet addiction actually is a bigger danger in China, and that therefore at least some of the Chinese policy stance is justifiable. Here, I argue that China’s government has a right to conceptualize of population health in their own terms – and I ask what it might mean to be healthy in Chinese terms. I consider the ways in which Chinese medicine has typically thought about the principles of balance and preventive care, showing how to a typical Chinese parent or even a typical Chinese health practitioner, the tendency of an individual to spend most of his waking hours on the internet might indeed seem “unbalanced.” Thus, it is possible to make a claim that to the Chinese citizens themselves, spending too much time on the internet might indeed seem like a form of mental illness. In addition, I consider the ways in which Chinese efforts to establish balance frequently have a preemptive component.
