Window on Eurasia

Orthodox Church Fights Internet Dependence in Yekaterinburg

Paul Goble

Tallinn, June 14, 2006 -- Following a tragic incident in which a
Yekaterinburg schoolboy suffered a fatal stroke after play video games
twelve hours a day, the rehabilitation center operated by that city's
Russian Orthodox Church eparchate is now working to combat a rising
tide of Internet dependence there.

Elena Glushkova, a psychologist who works at the center, said that
Internet dependence is " disease of the human soul" and thus can
be fought only by addressing that aspect of it just as therapists have
long recognized in treating alcoholism and drug abuse
[http://www.pravoslavie.ru/cgi-bin/print.cgi?item=2r060609162335].

Russians of all ages are falling victim to this disease as access to
computers spread, she continued. "In this electronic world, things
are much more interesting and simpler for them because on the computer
everything is always under the control of the user," something that
like alcohol and drugs gives those with Internet dependence the
illusion of power.

Psychologists and religious leaders in the Russian Federation are
increasingly concerned about the impact of Internet dependence on the
increasing number of Russians going online. And some experts there
suggest that as many as 10 percent of all users of the world wide web
may be negatively affected by it.

Many religious people are pointing to the threat to family life that
online pornography and sex chat rooms pose. Others say that as many as
15 percent of young people who a third group of commentators point to
the way in which going online may isolate individuals from their
families and friends.

But it was the death of a 12-year-old boy in Yekaterinburg ten days ago
that caused these concerns to escalate across the Urals region. On May
31, a schoolboy suffered a seizure after playing computer games all day
in one of the local computer clubs and taken to a a local hospital
where he was initially diagnosed as having had an epileptic seizure.

According to the doctors, the boy became "disoriented, ceased to
recognize his parents, and behaved in inappropriate ways." They put
him on a ventilator to try to save his life but after three days the
boy died. An autopsy determined that he had suffered a massive stroke.

Aleksei Sulimov, the head of the narcologic division of the
childrenв's hospital there, said he and his colleagues were "shocked" by the
deterioration of the child's brain and concluded that this was the
product of "the prolonged emotional stress" of playing computer
games
[http://www.hram-evenkya.ru/fnews2.php?id=678].

The ensuing media attention to this case determined that the boy had
been playing video games ten to 12 hours every day for an extended
period. Neither his parents nor his friends were able to stop him. Only
his physical collapse, the doctors said, had been able to do that.

As in other countries, Russians are struggling to come to terms with
what psychologists there call a new plague
[http://depressia.com/page_156.html].

Efforts to rate sites or games -- something often tried -- frequently prove counterproductive,
leading young people to go to precisely those that they are supposed to avoid.

The ability of parents to restrict their children's use of computers
to the 5 minutes or so of play a day that experts recommend is limited,
Russian experts say. Partially as a result, Internet dependence is now
so large that it is affecting not only the lives of the victims and
their families but also the educational system and the workplace.

If the Orthodox Church has taken the lead in some places, in others, it
has been business groups who worry about Internet abuse on their
operations, and the later are supporting reabilitation centers in their
efforts to cure this new psychological disorder
[http://www.businesspress.ru/newspaper/article_mld_21921_ald_363806.html].

But again and just like in other countries, no one in Russia has found
a magic bullet to cure this disease, and despite the best efforts of the
Orthodox and secular rehabilitation centers, this problem seems certain
to grow, as more and more Russians gain access to the extraordinarily
useful but equally threatening Internet.