Summary of proposed limits by Twitter user @Orikron
🇨🇳 China is set to limit the amount of time children spend on the internet:
16 to 18 - 2 hours
8 to 16 - 1 hour
Under 8 - 40 minutes
No internet access on children’s devices from 10pm-6am
Parents will be allowed to opt out of the time limits for their youngsters.
Edit: additional info from @qwename@lemmygrad.ml:
Parents can change default time limits
Reminder to rest every 30 minutes
Apps not subject to time limits include:
- Emergency-related (safety, emergency calling etc.)
- Approved educational apps
- Tools suitable for minors (image processing, calculator, measurement etc.)
- User-defined by parents
Full draft available in Chinese: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2023-08/02/c_1692541991073784.htm
I bet western media will just magically forget to mention that the parents have the final control over the system when they cover the story.
My kneejerk reaction would be that too many parents would just instantly opt-out for it to be effective, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that a lot of people might just keep the default parameters. If I suddenly became a parent and didn’t have a good concept of what an appropriate amount of time would be, I might be inclined to keep the baseline restrictions. Even if they don’t, the government limitation could be good guidelines for them to base what they decide would work.
Seems like a good first step, 2 hours seems like plenty of time for high school students, at least during the week. I wouldn’t necessarily mind lighter restrictions on weekends, but that would probably fall under the purview of parental discretion. No live-streaming for under-16 seems like a no-brainer that should be adopted everywhere honestly.
Good points. It’s more effort to opt out. And many parents will surely appreciate the fact they can tap their watch and say, ‘I don’t make the rules’. It can be hard for parents to limit things like this ‘because their friends are online’, etc. So this rule will make it easier for parents to be united against tech-creep.
I saw a similar article posted on Reddit the other day and it was like twilight zone in the comments where almost everyone was saying that all parents should do this with their kids. I think it was centered around young children though. Still I think is shows that it’s almost unanimously agreed children should be safe guarded from the internet. lol.
Meanwhile is the west we have games made specifically to prey upon children and trick them into spending thousands from their parents credit cards and don’t get me started on the cesspool that is gaming streamers.
I think the ideal polilcy both recognizes the possible benefits from the increased access to information that comes with the internet, and the great risks. An elephant in the room, with a particular significance to those who experienced it first (not to say that our parents didnt have similar or worse in non digital form) is the fact that the normalization of internet access also normalized access to hardcore pornography amongst teenagers and even some kids.
One of the main complaints I’ve heard from kids in my area around 10 years and up is that banning them from the internet is essentially isolating them. Most families do not have home phones any longer, so their only way to communicate is often via online apps.
I think setting reasonable limits is important, but it may also be necessary to make sure children still have ways to socialize with other children regularly outside of school. Granted, I know nothing of how this works in China and maybe it’s a non-issue there.
I was talking to someone the other day about how hard it would be to raise kids with technology. Do you take the slot machine out of their pockets until they’re some arbitrary age? Will the good that does outweigh the harm of not being as socially connected as their peers?
The return of dumbphones might be a solution, but smartphones do so much (think GPS) and are required for so much that this has its own problems.
I am childfree but a lot of my close friends have kids now, and this is a huge topic of conversation for all of them. Working out how much time they spend on devices, what they do on the devices, etc. They don’t want to segregate their kids from learning important technologies at a young age, but neither do they want their kids to be online 24/7. I honestly don’t envy the situation.
I think these restrictions are honestly a pretty good baseline guideline.
Makes sense, a limit as strict as 8 minutes for the youngest kids seriously inhibits basic communication, so really this either has to iterated on or a great deal of parents will just opt out so it has no effect.
8 min
It’s actually 40 minutes for minors under 8, not sure where the original person got 8 from.
I wonder if there will be an exception made for texting or calling, since the article mentions Internet addiction specifically and parents probably want their children to be able to contact them 24/7
As far as I know they can restrict access to certain types of internet services, like games, social media, etc, so it’s pretty far from whole-internet blocking. It would be pretty reasonable to keep a messaging and calling app open, limited to friends and family of course, along with online school resources and educational content, as well as general things that have artistic or literary value and don’t pose a risk of addiction.
Here’s the full draft in Chinese: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2023-08/02/c_1692541991073784.htm. It’s actual 40 minutes for “Under 8” and not 8 minutes. Here’s my own summary:
The proposed guidelines do not just affect smartphones, but all mobile smart devices for kids.
The proposed 5 age groups are:
- Under 3
- 3 to under 8
- 8 to under 12
- 12 to under 16
- 16 to under 18
Default time limits are (parents can exempt all time limits):
- under 8: 40 minutes
- 8 to under 16: 1 hour
- 16 to under 18: 2 hours
- Reminder to rest every 30 minutes
- No service to be provided to minors from 10PM to 6AM the next day
Apps not subject to time limits:
- emergency-related (safety, emergency calling etc.)
- approved educational apps
- tools suitable for minors (image processing, calculator, measurement etc.)
- User-defined by parents
Content providers are also required to provide age-based service under “minor mode”. You can find the recommendations for different age groups under the heading “五、移动互联网应用程序未成年人模式要求（一）基本要求”, it’s too long for me to translate.
There’s more information in the full draft, this proposed guidelines is basically a mix of parental controls and NSFM (NSFW but for minors, not safe for minors) requirements for content providers.
