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Noviembre 09, 2005
Bad, Internet Café, Bad
A 24-hour internet café was closed by the city for its negative effect on the youth of Cochabamba. Apparently, the lure of online computer games was too much for some to resist. The internet café provided much needed services such as a cafeteria and even mattresses so that the youngsters could rest between games.
“With the 24-hour operation, it allowed the kids to pass countless hours playing online games which created an addiction. The parents complained that their children didn’t return home to sleep and they stole money to spend at the café. Many of the school children dropped out of school and lost an entire year of schooling,” said Pedro Lima, head of the Department of Moral and Public Events.
Some of the children spent three entire days without leaving the café as they kept advancing various levels in the games.
Internet cafes have popped up all over Cochabamba. In most cases, school children would head over to these establishments to play the latest game, which a couple of years ago was Starcraft. I never even tried to use the internet during these times as all of these kids would occupy every single computer. They would often pay for 15 minutes of internet time at a time, which would fly by. The café operator would need to call out that the time was up and you could hear the despair in their voices, “just five more minutes!” They would soon have to ante up an additional 50 centavos for an another 15 minutes of gametime.
However, it is not only schoolchildren who attend to this addiction. Near our apartment in Cochabamba, there is an internet café which is located in a building full of Brazilian medical students. Every afternoon they would come down to play one of these online computer games. They would become very animated talking trash very loudly to their friends who were playing with them at other computers, hooting and hollering with no regard for others in the café trying to check email or look up something online.
There is a very good reason why these internet cafes continue to thrive in Cochabamba and that is because there is definitely a demand for cheap sources of entertainment.
Posted by eduardo at Noviembre 9, 2005 01:29 AM
Comments
Most likely this Internet Café was hurting the sales of the many chicherías in the vicinity. Soon coming... an Internet Chichería to a barrio near you ;).
Posted by: Alexey at Noviembre 9, 2005 12:21 PM
It's just another way violent/addicting passtimes are penetrating everywhere. Keep the mind busy with fantasy and then later on fulfill that fantasy in real life creating problems in that society. It's hard to avoid because there is so much time and money spent on creating 'new & exciting' games. It's a very profitable business worldwide and a lot of humans, both young and old, have not self-control and want to forget about real problems that we have.
Posted by: pituko at Noviembre 18, 2005 05:07 PM