Admit it or not, the so-called “Internet addiction” exists, as more and more people choose to spend an important part of their time chatting, surfing the Web and sending emails. This is why in South Korea this growing problem determined the creation of the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, which employs a boot camp that will try to save people from their modern-day addiction. The camp officials will offer counseling sessions and therapeutic workshops interwoven with military-style obstacle courses, so that Internet addicts could become normal people again.

The Internet came in our lives with shy steps, but it was love at first sight. Now, after just about ten years since surfing the Internet became a daily habit, we can’t imagine a world without it and without all the “goodies” it brings along, such as social networking web sites or Instant Messaging protocols, for example.

Although there are countries where the Internet is partially still fiction, these places are becoming fewer and fewer as the days go by. Thanks to the important high tech companies’ efforts, almost everybody can now enjoy the advantages that the new technology has brought to us. South Korea, however, “has been most aggressive in embracing the Internet. […] Now we have to lead in dealing with its consequences,” Koh Young-sam, head of the government-run center, stated, referring to the fact that 90 percent of the country has 3 Mbps broadband at home and similarly high-speed wireless connections on the road.

Excepting the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, South Korea has also built another 140 Internet-addiction counseling centers and developed treatment programs at over 100 hospitals. It also held the first international symposium on Internet addiction.