Check out the great article on Tao Ran's Beijing military hospital Internet addiction clinic in the Washington Post yesterday.  It's the best inside description I've seen yet.  One thing it does is highlight the pressure Chinese kids are under to perform academically in middle and high school, the pressure Chinese parents feel to ensure their children's future success, and the perception that the Internet is only about entertainment and not about learning.  An excerpt:

Among the milder cases are those of Yu Bo, 21, from Inner Mongolia, and Li Yanjiang, 15, from Hebei province. Both said that they used to spend four to five hours a week online and their daily lives weren't affected but that their parents wanted them to cut their computer usage to zero so they could study. Yu said he agreed to come because he wanted to train himself. Li said it was because he just wanted to "get away from my parents."

Another boy was sent by his parents because he wasn't interested in school and didn't "have a goal."  Now, with the help of a clinic counselor, "he's mapped out a life plan from now until he's 84."  For some kids the problem is not what they're doing online, or that they're addicted to games, but that they are doing anything at all unrelated to studies.  And of course, they come from wealthy families.  As this comment on an earlier Virtual China post (see below) says: This guys are all in rich family. The reason is the bad education. In China,15-18 students have to spend at least 9 hours in classroom everyday (in grade 3,it will increase to 10-12 hours).  NO time to playing basketball/football. if you do something else you will be criticized by teachers and parents

According to a report I wrote on Chinese young people and education, based on 2005 Chinese educational data,

Ninety-one percent of the Chinese population attends the compulsory six years of primary school and three of junior middle school. At the end of junior middle school students participate in their first major academic hurdle— senior middle school entrance examinations—which weed out about 70% of students from the academic track. Those that don't end their education here will enter non-degree specialized, vocational, or technical senior high schools. Those who enter academic senior secondary schools spend their time feverishly preparing for the national college entrance examinations that will place them in either 2–3-year junior colleges or 4-year universities. Ultimately, only 7% of those who graduate from junior middle school will attend 4-year universities. Over 60% will end their education at senior high school, without going on to college. 

(via China Digital Times)

See also TV Clip on Internet Addicts