Internet Rescue School(IRS) run by Korea Youth Counseling Institute(KYCI) and funded by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family(MGEF) exaggerates examples of the game addiction, quoting a local media.
Game Discipline of Children
The head of Game Media Education Center(GMEC) JangHee Kwon wroke a book titled <Game Discipline of Children>, claiming that the game addiction caused a breakdown of cash machine.
He said “The IRS students who could not play the games violently pushed buttons on the cash machines and busted two of them within four days. This is an example showing that playing the games repetitively would eventually lead you to play it unconsciously and habitually because their brains became rigid.”
But the bank did not agree with him. They said the machines have just broken more frequently during the times the youth visit the training center, giving statistical evidence. So his insistence does not make sense at all.
Moreover, Mr. Kwon said “Late development of the frontal lobe of the children addicted in the games results them tending to behave instinctively and aggressively just like a beast. There are some beast-like children with human face.” His opinion is grounded in a Japanese professor Mori Akio’s theory that playing a game does not utilize the frontal lobe at all and it lowers the ability of the brain that takes charge of humanity, consequentially making people no better than beasts.
But the theory is not recognized and is regarded as a mass of incongruities from the academia. Playing chess, go, or even sports games does not use the frontal lobe either.
The IRS cures the children at high risk of internet addiction for 10 days, funded by the MGEF of about US$200,000 million last year which has increased up to US$780,000M this year.
Moreover, the MGEF is pushing a bill that collects 1% of game tax from the industry in order to run treatment facilities for game addiction.
