August 31, 2021 - 7:00am
Online computer games are addictive — and many parents struggle to limit the amount of time their children spend playing them. But not in China. There, the government does it for you.
In measures announced this week, the state-mandated ration for all under-18s has been reduced to just three hours per week. What’s more, these are three specific hours i.e. 8pm to 9pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. If you miss the thrice-weekly slot, then too bad.
According to the BBC, online gaming providers use facial recognition to stop children from logging on between 10pm and 8am — and presumably this could be used to enforce the new restrictions too.
So just how sinister is this crackdown? The idea of a screen — in your own home — that looks back at you to make sure you’re behaving as required has obvious Orwellian overtones.
Then again, one could argue that real dystopia is in the West — where we allow social media and gaming companies to snare our children’s time without restriction. Indeed, we don’t seem to much care about the access that western children have to pornography — including some of the most extreme and degrading images.
A 2015 attempt by the British Government to launch a UK-wide porn filter hit repeated delays until the idea was abandoned altogether in 2019. It was an object lesson in the weakness of western democracy in the face of new technology.
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SubscribeIt’s the tale of two dystopias again. China is 1984, with full-on state surveillance. The West is Brave New World, where the masses are kept under control by meaningless pleasures, supplied cheaply (or freely) and available at the click of a mouse.
You are so right! The Brave New World is subtle and seductive- happy drugs,easier life and distractions.
At last someone has pointed out the evils that are inflicted on our children (and their happy futures) by allowing deviant sexual practices to be broadcast on social media as if it is behaviour to be expected in long-term relationships. To think that all this tolerance stems from “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” which was harmless sexual attraction!
I doubt any worldly-wise parent fails to realise the damage caused by addiction to gaming – or any other internet sourced activity.
If you want to control this stuff yourself (without state involvement) just invest in a broadband router in your home – that allows you to give each kid their own network – and then manage the access timetable for that particular child.
It cost me about £300 … and gives me a great reward/punishment tool into the bargain.
Your advice is good, but the problem, Ian, is that there are a lot of worldly (and selfish and negligent) parents who aren’t wise! I hate the thought of Chinese-style government controls, but I don’t know how this evil genie can be forced back into the bottle without something like them. Our young people’s minds are being poisoned to make some people rich.
Its fine for parents not to ensure restricted access for their kids (to feed their internet addictions) – as long as they are happy to accept reduced life chances for their offspring compared to the other parents/nations who do.
Be prepared to accept that many future “working from home” jobs will go to disciplined Chinese kids (at lower cost) rather than your children.
Good points, Ian. The lack of discipline in homes and schools, made worse by some features of digital technology, is making the West weak and a pushover for our commercial and military rivals. For education to work, there must be mental focus and concentration, which are impossible to achieve in ill-disciplined and distracting homes and classrooms.
yes , in NZ , the number of students tackling the tough degrees requiring may years of hard work and self discipline are increasingly Asian – driven by culture and financial security. ‘Our’ recent histories (European NZ) have been way to comfortable to want to go thru that level of hard work. Twill be the way of the future.
How much evidence is there actually that the Internet is greatly harming teenagers? There may be, but this sounds like yet another moral panic, it used to be raves, video nasties etc.
Great, more authoritarian “it’s for the children” rhetoric.
Great, more permissive, ‘its for freedom’ harming the children rhetoric.
“Oh Mr. Government, parenting is hard! Please take responsibility away from me and give it to a bunch of bureaucrats! Freedom is overrated anyway.”
“I don’t understand it. How do I have so little say in my child’s education and livelihood these days? Where did these bureaucrats get so much power?”
Technology makes a good servant but a poor master. As we program machines to become more human-like, we teach humans to become more computer-like.
As history, culture, and even gender become erased, we allow ourselves to become sexless worker drones dependent on those in control of the hive-mind.
Please, no more copying China -its plunged us into a new dark age as it is!
A ‘can do attitude’ with less emphasis vested interests between commercial tech and government.