Chinese man who collapsed after 14-day non-stop Internet use begs doctors to turn on his computer.

Mr Xia, 21, told doctors who arrived to treat him: "Leave me alone and turn on the computer for me. I want to surf the internet"

A Chinese man who reportedly collapsed after a 14-day internet gaming marathon asked doctors who arrived to treat him to "turn on the computer" so he could continue surfing the web.

In the latest example of the country's troubling obsession with the virtual world, the 21-year-old named only as Mr Xia collapsed onto the pavement outside an internet café in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, according to a report in the Anhui Business Review.

When doctors arrived to take the goggle-eyed man to hospital he reportedly told them: "Leave me alone and turn on the computer for me. I want to surf the internet."

Ms Wang, a cleaning lady at the café, said she had seen the young man stagger out of the building following a two-week online binge during which he had chain-smoked, repeatedly dodged showers and eaten almost nothing.

"[At] 7am on May 3, he told me he was feeling a little dizzy and hadn't eaten for a day and that he would go out to get some food," she told the website.

"He couldn't stand up on his own so I helped him. He was quite smelly by then." At 7.30am Mr Xia collapsed into a heap on the ground outside.

China now has 649 million internet users, according to government figures, but also an estimated 24 million internet addicts, many of them teens.

Earlier this year a teenager from Jiangsu province was reported to have chopped off his hand in an attempt to cure his addiction.

Tao Ran, who runs a famous Beijing "boot camp" for internet obsessed teens, said such tactics would not work. "I fear he will become addicted again."

Mr Xia, the Anhui internet addict, told reporters he had run away from home after becoming hooked on online role-playing games including World of Warcraft.

"I found confidence in this virtual world," he said.

Additional reporting Ailin Tang