Japan's Government Predicts Internet Fasting Camps Will Cure Addicted Teens

A group of teenagers plays basketball outside. Kids participate in various team-building games. Young adults of all ages sit around a table for a meal, talking and laughing. But notice anything missing? None has a cellphone or web-connected device

That's what the Japanese government hopes its Internet fasting camps will look like in 2014.

The Japanese Ministry of Education is devising ways to fight Internet addiction in adolescents. The ministry plans to open Internet fasting camps in the coming fiscal year to help students learn to live away from their laptops and cellphones.

"We estimate this affects around 518,000 children at middle and high schools across Japan, but that figure is rising and there could be far more cases, because we don't know about them all," Akifumi Sekine, a representative of the ministry, told The Daily Telegraph in August. Read more...