Internet Addiction Couple Let Baby Starve To Death

New measures are being introduced in South Korea seeking to combat the problem of internet addiction.

The move follows the trial of a couple for negligent homicide. Their three-month old daughter died of malnutrition, allegedly because they were too busy raising a virtual child in a Second-Life-style game online known as Prius.

Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and Choi Mi-sun, 25, would feed their three-month-old baby only when not at 12-hour-online sessions in a local internet café. The pair were obsessed with raising their internet child, called Anima, resulting in the neglect of their unnamed real daughter.

After one such session in September the couple found their daughter dead and called police. An autopsy found the baby died from prolonged malnutrition.

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," Chung Jin-Won, a police officer, told Korean press.

"They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."...

Clinic Opens For Children Addicted To Video Games And The Internet

Doctors claim to have opened the first dedicated clinic in Britain to treat children addicted to video games and other technology.

Capio Nightingale Hospital, a private facility in Central London, introduced the service after calls from parents concerned about their children’s use of games, the internet, or mobile phones.

A spokeswoman for the hospital said the service would be offered for children as young as 12 but those aged 15 to 17 are expected to be the main target group...