Korean Job Discussion Forums

[murmanjake]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2928544

Teen hooked on e-games kills mom, then self: police
In a suicide note, boy says, �I was scolded too much�
November 18, 2010
A 15-year-old boy, after being scolded by his mother, apparently for being addicted to violent Internet games, killed her and then committed suicide, police said Tuesday.

�I was scolded by my mother because I played Internet games too much and I did something that I should not have done,� the boy said in a suicide note. �I�m sorry.�

The 43-year-old mother was found dead on her bed in the house in Daeyeon-dong, Busan, by her daughter at 7 a.m. Tuesday. The daughter called the police; they found that the boy had hung himself on a pipe on the balcony.

Given the bruises on the woman�s face and scratches on her neck, police suspect that the son had beaten and strangled her.

The boy�s younger sister said to police: �He was often absorbed in playing Internet games and used to stay up several nights doing it. I also heard my mother and brother having a fight last night [because of the games]. When I woke up, I found my mother dead.�

According to the police investigation, the boy had argued with his mother whenever she urged him not to play the games.

The sister said that since he started middle school, the boy frequently beat his mother when he had conflicts with her about playing the games. Police said the game the boy was most absorbed in was a shooting game.

According to police, the boy�s father left the family to do business in China when the boy was young. The boy�s mother worked in a photo studio to support the family. The grandmother said the boy�s addiction to the games began when his father left.

Meanwhile, police in Jincheon, South Chungcheong, said yesterday that a 2-month-old baby girl died while her mother was playing computer games.

Police said the mother fed her daughter at 9 p.m. and kept her in a baby walker while she played the game in the next room until 2 a.m. The mother took her daughter to the nearest hospital, but she was already dead. Police said they are investigating the mother to determine the exact cause of the baby�s death.

These are not the first cases in which computer usage has led to death. A man in his 20s from Gyeonggi Province killed his mother by hitting her with a blunt instrument in February because he hated his mother�s scolding about his focus on Internet games.

A month later, parents who regularly spent 10 hours playing an Internet game in a PC room left their ill daughter to starve to death.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in April and May conducted a study of 594,000 10-year-old children and 636,000 13-year-olds to find out how many hours they spend playing Internet games in a day. The ministry found 11,181 of the 10-year-olds and 9,014 of the 13-year-olds spend more than three or four hours a day playing Internet games and tend to be distracted by lack of sleep.

�It is recommended that parents not push [children] to reduce the time spent on games, but allow them to do what they want to do,� said Lee Hyung-cho, head of the Psychological Counseling Center in Seoul. But Lee also said, �Parents should teach [their children] that even a little violence is violence.�

[murmanjake]

see what I really want is an avatar of a merman, that way this kind of confusion could be avoided, but Dave is taking a while getting to back to me on my request for avatar privileges.

[Kaypea]

Hmm about the article, the advice seems really strange to me. My students... well, the ones who speak enough English to express fairly complex thoughts (so only a couple)... have told me that their parents are pretty strict about computer and game use. Like, they can use the computer, but only at certain times... uh, like normal kids.

It sounds like the kids in the article are (obviously) video game addicts, so they won't listen to the parents anyway. But it sounds like these families need to get rid of all their game equipment, and pay the local PC Bang owners to not let their kid have access to those computers.

At any rate, it sounds like a serious problem, needing serious intervention. So, I don't know... are parents of alcoholic teens told to just let the kids drink? Maybe it's a part of therapy I don't understand, but it sounds like the problem calls for drastic solutions.

[nukeday]

I feel like he's saying "Let them do what they want" as a fearful reaction to this story...as in, maybe there will be more murder-suicides.

[murmanjake]

He's a psychologist, though. It's strange that he would be so reactionary.

I would expect a little more foresight. Some ideas on how to wean kids off of video games, or some comment on the prevalence of this problem and some of the underlying mindsets that may be responsible.

So the thought is, your kid might kill you if you stop him from playing video games, so just let him play as much as he wants?

And "just a little violence is violence?" Maybe a good sentiment, but poorly expressed and not quite relevant.

Is this just a case of "lost in translation"?

[AsiaESLbound]

The little kids are increasingly being raised now with a, "let them do what they want," attitude so they do belligerently yell back at parents, teachers, and each other with anger such as when you tell them to do something they don't want to do.

Maybe abuse is causing kids to resent their abusers so they fight back? Maybe they are failing to learn the fact we all are asked to do things we don't want to do in life and it's expected to just suck it up instead of getting all vindictive about it?

I disagree that the, "let them do what they want," approach will reduce crime and social problems for it will only most likely lead to higher crime and problems later on due to students never learning how to control their own behavior to what is expected and right. If I were a parent, I'd stop hostile behavior quickly as soon as I seen it with no open dialogue for debate, but as a teacher, they know there are no repercussions and parents are too busy to hear it. The best approach a psychologist can tell is to just let kids do what they want? The computers and cell phones are making kids a tough cookie to crack, because they won't accept not being able to use it when you take it away for they feel they have every entitled right to use the technology. I would say there needs to be an ethics teaching written for early childhood centering around information technology use. 1. It's a privilege to use a PC. 2. Games are a privilege. 3. Texting is a privilege.

[machoman]

gaming addiction is a new problem.

some of you guys are (rightfully) criticizing what the korean counselor suggested, but what are the other alternatives for now?

i wouldn't know what to do if i were a parent in this situation.

[murmanjake]

Unplug the computer.

Lock the computer.

Disable the internet.

Of course this might trigger a murderous rage, but only if you had already let it get out of hand.

I wonder about issues of desensitization with the kid that killed his mother. Maybe his perception of death was a little skewed by all those video games, leading to him beating his mother to death without fully realizing what he was doing. And then once reality hit he killed himself.


On a side note, Dave granted me avatar privileges!

[machoman]

actually, i figured it out. raise them somewhere else besides korea

[madoka]

[le-paul]

there will be more to the story than that.
The kid may have been/probably was very psychotic.

However, 'Lee Hyung-cho, head of the Psychological Counseling Center in Seoul' sounds like he needs to go back to school and study rudimentary psychology if thats his advice to the nation.

[itistime]

How about 'give these kids a ball and tell them to go play in the field, etc.'