Parents pursuing one radical solution to their child's internet addiction may have received a nasty shock - though not as nasty as the shocks their children got.
The Ministry of Health on Monday banned a controversial electroshock treatment to cure internet addiction. But since then, debate has raged between parents desperate to get children away from computers and teens outraged by the treatment.
'It was heartbreaking seeing our child obsessed with the internet. We will lose everything if our child is addicted to the internet,' a parent from Henan who sent a child to the clinic at the centre of the controversy told the Zhengzhou Evening News.
'The therapy was effective. Why stop it? Why set up an obstacle to our kids kicking their internet habit?'
The man who offered the electroshock therapy, Yang Yongxin, opened his Internet Addiction Treatment Clinic in Linyi , Shandong province , in 2006.
Mr Yang claimed he had helped nearly 3,000 teenagers overcome their internet addiction by sending electric currents through their temples and fingers. The treatment cost 24,000 yuan (HK$27,300) for a four-month course.