In 2008, China became the first country to declare internet addiction a clinical disorder. It has since been trying to tackle this 21st-century problem with sometimes highly controversial techniques. Fears over the abuse of minors in some boot camps, where interns are sometimes locked up in prison-like cells and suffer corporal punishment and beatings, have spurred government action. The dire conditions in some institutions were exposed last year when a teenager reportedly starved her mother to death as retribution for having sent her to one.
