This will probably appear as strange - or even insane to most of you, but a 19-year-old in China has hacked his own hand off to "cure" his internet addiction. Identified as "Little Wang", a young male from the city of Nantong in the Jiangsu province, left a hand-written note for his mother saying:
Mum, I have gone to the hospital for a while. Don"t worry, I will definitely come back this evening.
Wang then took the kitchen knife, crept out of the house to a public park where he proceeded to chop off his left hand till his wrist so he could "cure" his internet addiction. Then, he called a taxi which rushed him off to the closest hospital while his hand still lay on a bench in the park. Grisly images of the severed hand were later broadcasted on Chinese channels.
Wang"s distraught mother- who refused to be identified, was shocked by her son"s drastic actions stating that:
We cannot accept what has happened. It was completely out of the blue. He was a smart boy.
Fortunately, the detached hand was secured by the local police and taken to the hospital"s emergency room where the doctors successfully reattached it. However, they doubt whether the limb will ever be fully functional again.
Internet addiction is becoming a major concern in Asian countries, China boasts of 649 million internet users; parents in Taiwan are now legally obliged to limit their kids" computer time, two years ago Shanghai approved a new legislation to stop children from "being overindulgent with online and electronic games" and rehabilitation centers are being set up for "internet junkies".
Mr Tao, from the Beijing rehabilitation center believes that even more extreme steps need to be taken, children under the age of seven should be kept away from online games, and teenagers should be stopped from entering internet cafés. He also fears that Wang - who even chopped off his hand to stop his internet addiction, will still "become addicted again".
Source: TecheBlog, The Telegraph