Internet & Psychology in China: the Past, Today, and Future

By Su Wenliang, Originally posted at ISMHO Discussion Forum, November 4, 2006,

̅s Network Information Center (SRI-NIC), and initiated the international e-mail services under .CN.

3. The internet psychology in China

From the year of 2002, there has some Chinese scholars recognized the combination of internet and psychology, and introducing internet as a new psychological research tool (Zhao & Zhu, 2002).

In the early of 2003, I conducted my first research via internet titled "The Worried Well of AIDS and It's Psychological Mechanism: an Experiment Based on the Internet", which was an online survey to a particular population who was hard to access by traditional way. It’s my bachelor’s thesis and was one of the earliest researches using internet for psychological research in China.

The epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in China from the mid of 2003 facilitated the application of internet in psychology.. In this crisis period, there was a great demand for psychologists to do research and offering intervention. But under the epidemic of SARS, everyone was feared to meet others face to face avoiding the virus transmitting. So the traditional tools can’t work, and the telephone or internet became a very good option. From the internet, people can learn what is SARS, how to prevent the infection, and also how to cope this stressor well to keep mental health. It also provided a possibility for the psychologists to do surveys about people’s reaction under the SARS crisis(Chen, Wang, Xie, & Chen, 2003; Xie, Wang, Liu, Chen, & Chen, 2005).

Because of the serious of internet addiction in China, it compels researchers to perform more surveys and study more cases to exploring it's mechanism and intervention. This issue takes the largest proportion (about 50%, by roughly counted) of published article related to internet psychology. Other issues related to internet psychology such as online behaviors, online advertisement, online relationship, internet and psychotherapy, online game, online assessment and online research method. The number of published papers in this area is increasing year by year in China.

Since the internet make great change in people’s life style and behavior, many person interest in the psychology of internet. From September of this year, I began to teach the "Internet Psychology" curriculum for the bachelor student majored in economic psychology, in the Central University of Finance and Economics. I also established a website (

http://www.netpsy.cn, only in Chinese now) for this curriculum, offering the related electric resources, and the students can submit and share their homework online, questions and answers on the forum. They were very active and enjoyed in these topics. This course is very new in china, but I think it will be popular in a near future.

On April 20, 1994, the National Computing and Networking Facility of China (NCFC) project opened a 64K international dedicated line to the Internet through Sprint Co. Ltd of the United States, which achieved its full-functional connection to the Internet. Since then, China has been officially recognized as a country with full functional Internet accessibility.

On May 15, 1994, the High-Energy Physics Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS) set up China's first web server and made the first set of web pages. Apart from briefing on the development of high technology in China, there was another column called ¡ Tour in China¡±.

In May 1994, the National Research Center for Intelligent Computing System opened the first BBS in Chinese mainland

̅s Republic of China on the Management of International Networking of Computer Information¡±.

On November 15, 1996, the Shihuakai Corporation built up the Shihuakai Internet Caf

̈| besides the capital gymnasium; it was the first Internet caf̈| in China.

(More information can be accessed from the website of CNNIC, with English version.)

2. The current internet use in China

In November 1997, CNNIC published the first ¡ Statistical Report on Internet Development in China¡±(CNNIC, 1997). By October 31, 1997, there were 299,000 computer hosts and 620,000 Internet users in China; 4,066 domain names were registered under .CN. China had about 1,500 WWW web sites and 25.408M of the international bandwidth. Today, China has 54.50 million computer hosts and 123.00 million Internet users, about 788,400 WWW websites, and 214,175 M total bandwidth of international connections (CNNIC, 2006a). That¡

̅s a big change and these figures rise in a high speed every year.

I can introduce more details about the characteristics of Chinese internet users here£¬based on the nearest survey results from the CNNIC(CNNIC, 2006a). 58.8% of them was male, 55.1% was single. Most of them were young(53.8% under 25 years old, see figure1). They had good education(see figure2), and most of them accessing the internet at home(72.2%). The top five services most frequently used were: news(66.3%), search engine(66.3%), email(64.2%), BBS/Community/forum(43.2%), instant message(42.7%). The internet (82.6%) has been their main channel to obtain information, higher percentage than TV(64.5%), papers(57.9%), and magazines(18.8%).

The internet has been a main communication tool for many young people (another main tool is cell phone), and widely used in most area. From all levels of governments to enterprise, and even the film/music stars are active to set up their websites.

For me, I started to learn computer when I was at senior high school about 1996. The first year to access the internet and use email is 1999, when I entered into university. Now, most students in my university(Beijing Normal Univ.) has their personal computer or mobile computer, everyone has email accounts and some of them has a blog. They use internet to submit homework to the teacher, and read or download the course materials online. They usually chat with people recognized or unrecognized in QQ(similar to OICQ), browse the BBS and arguing hotly, enjoy online games, et.al.

4. Mental health online in China

(1)Internet addiction

Internet addiction is the biggest problem that Chinese people meet with internet. Many people lost their job or marriage caused by IA, and a lot of students drop out from the school. The prevalence of IA in adolescents is ranged from 6% to 12%(Bi, Su, Sun, Cao, & Wang, 2005; X. Li et al., 2006; Lin & Yan, 2001; Xi & Zhang, 2005). It varies depending on the year, the area and diagnosis instruments.

The Chinese psychologists’ researches about IA can be classified as the following issues:

a)The prevalence of IA, and to developing effective diagnosis instruments (Bai & Fan, 2005b; Cui & Zhao, 2004; Zhang & Dai, 2005); b)The characteristic of IA, such as internet usage, internet service preference, internet use motivation, time perspective, time memory traits etc. (Z. Huang et al., 2006; Lei & Li, 2004; Lei, Yang, & Liu, 2006); c)The consequence of IA, such as self-esteem, depression, relationship etc. (Z. Huang et al., 2006; J. Li & Zhao, 2002); d)Factors may related to the develop of IA, such as parental rearing style, coping style, social support, family function, personality, sensation seeking, implicit internet attitude etc. (Bi, Su, Sun, Cao, & Wang, 2005; Liang, Wu, Qiu, & Cao, 2005; Lin & Yan, 2001; Xi & Zhang, 2005); e)Biological level: brain event-related potentials (ERPs) and heart rate variability (HRV) (Gao & Chen, 2006; He, 2006). f)Prevention and Intervention: there has a lot of attempts to trying to help the IA recovery. Most of them using CBT approach and do interventions in group counseling.(Bai & Fan, 2005a; R. Yang, Shao, & Zheng, 2005; Y. Yang, Cui, & Zhao, 2004).

As I know, there were more and more research programs about IA be funded by the government. In our research group, we are exploring the relationship between psychological needs, parent-child interaction and IA. We are also trying to offer self-help intervention to the IA online, using bio-feedback to see the physical activation difference between IAs and non-IAs, and treat the online game addicts by bio-feedback.

Just a few days ago(OCT 28, 2006), I read a news that, the Law Committee of National People's Congress had post a modification draft of the Minors' Protection Act to the standing committee. In that draft, the minors will be forbidden to enter the internet caf

é, and the government has the obligation to take action to organize research and explore new technique to prevent the internet dependency of the minors. If the draft was adopted(most likely), it will be a great push from the government to resolve this social problem.

Internet addiction is the most serious problem related to internet in China, but it’s not the only one. Another big problem is online sex or pornographic, in my observation. But I am not going to discuss detail here, because I know not very much in this.

(2) online mental health services

Although internet may bring some problems, it can be a good tool for improving the mental health. Today, there is great interest in expanding the availability of psychological applications on the Internet. The internet may distribute mental health services to the clients in three manners: online psychological assessments, mental health information online, and online counseling/therapy.

Computer-based psychological assessments are widely used in Chinese schools, hospitals, companies, army and even in the prisons. It has replaced the paper and pencil tests in most of the areas, because of its obvious advantages. The assessment service usually can be accessed in local area network(LAN) of the organization. There are also many psychology companies offering online assessment for fee or free. One big concern for this online application is that people were hard to identify the assessment is whether professional and standardized or not.

Mental health information can be viewed from a lot of Chinese websites. They provide numerous articles focus on familiar mental problems, such as depress, anxiety, OCD et al, and also articles to tell the tips about how to be positive with life, how to deal with relationships et al. This is the most popular online service in China.

Online counseling is also offered by some counselor, through email or synchronous chatting(text, audio or video). In China, the license system to counselor was just began for a few years and not very strict. So it’s common that a good counselor may do counseling without a licence, while somebody having a licence but may have not enough training and ability to offer counseling. This is the situation in real life, and it may be more complex in the cyberspace.

Some scholars has discussed the advantages and disadvantages of online counseling(L. Huang, 2006), ethical problems(Wu, Zhang, & Yu, 2006), and some researched the current status of online counseling in china(W. Li, Sun, Sang, & Meng, 2004; Shao & Liu, 2004). But few papers to investigate the effective of the online counseling/intervention (Lou, Zhao, Gao, & Shah, 2006).

Here are some websites for example:

a) Online Psychological Assessment Net (

http://www.psy-test.net, Chinese version only) b) Chinese Mental Health Online (http://www.21jk.com.cn, Chinese & English version) c) Mental Health Self-help Net (http://www.ayao.net, Chinese version only)

In my university, the internet has been a major instrument to improve the student’s mental health. The administrators are planning to employ the website to improve the college student’s mental health. Including offer online psychological assessment, knowledge about the mental disorders, and online appointment for face to face counseling, or online counseling(by instant message).

5. Future perspective

The internet is developing rapidly in China, and many of psychological applications online were widely used, but the research is somewhat behind them. As a large country and having different culture, to enhance the research about internet will not only benefit to the Chinese people, but also contributes to enrichment of our knowledge about the online behavior and health in a cultural context, and adding a global perspective for the world.

The opportunities and challenges are both exist for us, and I would like to imagine something about the future.

Online counseling and therapy is a good way to promote Chinese people’s mental health, and may be great developed in the future. Since the lack of qualified counselor, and people are resistant to see the counselor because of stigma, the online counseling or computer-guided therapy will be a good manner to distribute the service to more people, and with low stigma. Even the people living in the remote areas can access this service.

The cell phone is likely to be a new medium to deliver mental health service in China, since the function of the cell phone is more and more powerful, and there are much more cell phone users (426 million) than internet(123 million). Researches toward the addiction of cell phone, or the cell phone SMS interaction and relationship may win more attention.

Other new techniques like virtual reality(VR) will have more application in psychology. In China, VR was applied in many companies for product design and exhibition. It also be used in the institutes or universities for instruction or research, but few were about psychology(M. Zhao & Mou, 2005). There will be more people interest in the application of VR to the psychology, for the purpose of research or therapy.

The internet addiction will continue to be an important issue. The government will take more actions on the regulation to the online game companies, especially on how to design a game that not easily be addicted. Only intervention itself may be not enough for this problem. The prevention program is likely be much accounted of, such as the healthy internet use knowledge/skill education from the elementary school, or from the beginning of their computer use.

Other problems related to internet may get more studied, such as online pornographic, compulsive online shopping/gambling, negative sequences of playing violent electric games. …

There is a long way waiting for us, but we are on the road.

Note: 1)This article is not a strict paper, just for sharing something about my country as I know; 2)There should have many mistakes in the grammar or vocabulary usage in the paragraphs, I am sorry for that, though I had try my best.

Reference

Bai, Y., & Fan, F. (2005a). The Internet Dependency in College Students and Its Group Intervention Journal of Youth Research (China)(5), 42-49,19.

Bai, Y., & Fan, F. (2005b). A Study on the Internet Dependence of College Students:the Revising and Applying of a Measurement. Psychological Development and Education, 21(4), 99-104.

Bi, Y., Su, W., Sun, Y., Cao, H., & Wang, J. (2005). Psychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Internet Addicted Student in College. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 13(2), 170-172.

Chen, H., Wang, J., Xie, W., & Chen, W. (2003). A Study of Internet User's Mood and Its Relevant Variables under the Crisis of SARS. Chinese JournaI of Applied Psychology, 9(4), 7-13.

CNNIC. (1997). 1st Statistical Reports on the Internet Development in China. Retrieved 2006/11/4. from