Electrotherapy is a typical method of "negative reinforcement (that is, punishing behaviors that do not align with organizational goals, so as to weaken or even eliminate these behaviors, thereby ensuring that the achievement of goals is not disrupted)."

To call this "animal training" is actually not quite accurate, because usually, training animals relies more on "positive reinforcement," or a combination of "positive and negative reinforcement." To explain with a simple example... if you do it right, you get food; if you do it wrong, you get whipped—thus forming a conditioned reflex.

But it seems that Professor Foster is not very good at using positive reinforcement; he only knows how to use electrotherapy, after all... it works.

If you make him lie there and get shocked, and don't stop until he admits to having internet addiction, then he would admit to having internet addiction too; as long as the shocks are strong enough, let alone internet addiction, you could make him admit he's a dog—if he doesn't admit it after a day of shocks, I'll admit defeat.

Of course, relying solely on this kind of operation, his center—or rather, the "adolescent behavior correction" industry—could not last long; after all, electric shocks are just a method, and methods can change. Today you use electrotherapy, tomorrow you could use water torture... as long as the government doesn't intervene, you can do whatever you want.

However, for an industry to survive and continue, it can't rely only on methods; the most important thing is market demand.

If "prostitution" is a service industry built on human instinctual needs, then an "internet addiction rehab center" is a harbor for "failures in education" to dock.

The real brilliance of Professor Foster does not lie in his methods, but here—on the psychological level, he shifts the blame that should have been borne by the parents onto a fictional illness, onto the internet, game companies, and even society as a whole; on the physiological level, he uses negative reinforcement to "transform" the "patients."

In other words, by sending their children to the center, consumers can absolve themselves of responsibility, and when they pick up their children from the center, they can get the "results" they want; in the end, they feel justified and satisfied, telling themselves: "I'm not wrong, my child isn't wrong either, it's the fault of all kinds of objective factors, and the situation caused by these objective factors has already been 'corrected' by Professor Foster."

With such "service," of course the consumers are satisfied. Since the customers are satisfied, the business can naturally continue.

As a result, Professor Foster's center has been running for more than a decade, and the professor himself has been hailed as the "savior of degenerate youths poisoned by the internet and society," truly gaining both fame and fortune.

Especially inside the center, James Foster is practically a godlike figure. The staff all nod and bow when they see him, and the patients are "required" to bow at a ninety-degree angle when they see him; if he weren't afraid of attracting government attention, he might have already made the patients kneel and worship him.

"Assembly time, all allies please gather in the corridor... assembly time, all allies..."

While talking with William Grant, before they knew it, it was already six thirty.

At that moment, a stiffly intoned recorded announcement sounded right on time, with strange "buzzing and hissing" noises mixed in that could be heard in every dorm room through the loudspeakers.

Upon hearing the assembly broadcast, Ethan Logan and William Grant immediately stopped talking, left the room together, and quickly went out into the corridor.

Because the dorm room only has a washbasin and no toilet, anyone needing the restroom has to go to the public toilet in the corridor, so the electronic door of the dorm can be freely opened with the fingerprint of any resident; last night, the dorm supervisor opened the door with Ethan Logan only because the latter had just entered the center and the room assignment and fingerprint registration process hadn't been fully completed yet; now that William Grant was awake, it was naturally his job to open the door.

Two minutes after they arrived in the corridor, a dorm supervisor hurriedly walked by, inspecting the "patients" who had already lined up by room number.

"Hold your ally's hand, forward... march!" When the supervisor reached the last room, he loudly gave the order.

In this center, "patients" are called "allies"—a term invented by Professor Foster. He also requires all patients and their parents to call him "Uncle Foster."

"Maintain order! No whispering!" As the line began to move, the supervisor followed at the end of the line, shouting sternly as he walked.

Ethan Logan had already thoroughly investigated these daily routines.

At six thirty, everyone assembles; at six forty-five, all the allies on each floor gather in their floor's "activity room" to do "kowtow exercises," or "kneeling exercises." It's said that when the center first opened, these exercises were done on the playground, but since people kept trying to escape outdoors, it was later changed to the current arrangement.

At seven o'clock, all allies gather in the cafeteria for breakfast, and at seven thirty, they return to their floor's classroom for class; but "class" here doesn't mean a teacher lectures—it's just self-study. As for the study materials... they're mainly textbooks written by Uncle Foster, various internal rules and regulations of the center, and content from previous "commentary classes."

After three periods, it's lunchtime at noon, which lasts forty-five minutes, followed by the only one-hour free activity time of the day. Of course... "free activity" just means you can move around within a limited area.