The increasing use of the Internet has increased the generation gap
between many Chinese urban residents and their children in
households that have access to the Internet.
While a growing number of middle school students indulge in surfing
on the Internet and on-line chat, many of their parents still do
not know how to use a computer keyboard.
The widening gap has recently drawn much publicity following
reports that several middle school students have left their homes
without saying good-by and have remained missing for weeks in
Internet-related cases.
The students are believed to have left their homes to meet those
with whom they fell in love via the Internet, or to devote their
time to Internet gaming.
Two junior middle-school girls in Shanghai, identified by their
Internet names as "Rag Doll" and "Yang Xue", have been missing for
two months in an Internet-related case, the Shanghai-based Xinmin
Evening News reported earlier this week.
Their parents, still in shock, have come to realize their own
responsibility for the disappearance of their daughters.
In
an e-mail to their daughters, the parents wrote "we are sorry to
have treated you as just little kids who know nothing, and kept
blaming you when we disagreed with."
"We know too little of your inner world."
The case of Rag Doll and Yang Xue, however, is just tip of the
iceberg of Internet-related problems facing Chinese parents.
A
16-year-old schoolgirl in central China's Hunan
Province left home last July for
Baotou, an industrial city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region, north China, to "look for love" she found online.
Earlier this year, two junior school students in Beijing
disappeared from their homes and schools. One, who is still
missing, is said to be infatuated with computer games in Internet
bars, and the other, who was reported missing for two months,
simply spent the time chatting online all night in Internet
bars.
A
recent survey on the influence of high technology on students has
found, among other things, that using personal computers has become
one of the major pastimes for urban middle school students in
China, while their parents focus their attention on the academic
performance of the children, ignoring the children's need for
emotional exchange and parental guidance.
Xiong Qingnian, vice-president of the Institute of Higher Learning
at Fudan
University, said junior middle school students are too young to
be able to cope with the complicated virtual world
independently.
Some classmates of the two Shanghai girls said they liked surfing
on the Internet, which gave them a sense of maturity and
independence.
But for their emotional problems arising from their experiences via
the Internet, the students complained, they could not consult their
teachers or parents over those sensitive issues, due to their lack
of understanding or computer-related knowledge.
Parents of junior middle school students in China were mostly born
during the 1950s and 1960s and received little education due to the
disastrous "Cultural Revolution" (1966-1976).
Yang Xiong, president of the Juvenile Institute of the Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences, said a rapid flow of information and
knowledge has made it difficult for parents to be the sole
authority of knowledge and information over their children.
The Internet has actually facilitated democracy in a family, Yang
said, adding parents should regard their children as equal friends,
which will make it easier for them to speak their minds.
"The parents, on the other hand, should enrich and update their
knowledge to keep up with the times and narrow the generation gap,
and offer their kids the right advice or help."
The number of Internet subscribers in China is close to 30 million,
up about 50 percent over the same period of last year.
But the population of middle school students using the Internet is
set to jump at breathtaking speed.
Computer courses are available to millions of students as young as
eight years old in major Chinese cities, where personal computers
are becoming another inexpensive household item like television
sets.
(China
Daily November 9, 2001)