August 30, 2021

"China Limits Videogames to Three Hours a Week for Young People/New regulation will ban minors from playing videogames entirely between Monday and Thursday."

 The Wall Street Journal reports.

China on Monday issued strict new measures aimed at curbing what authorities describe as youth videogame addiction, which they blame for a host of societal ills, including distracting young people from school and family responsibilities.... Videogames have become a particular object of ire as Beijing seeks to reshape an industry it has described as motivated by profit at the expense of public morals.... Chinese leader Xi Jinping, too, has warned publicly in recent months about the perils of youth gaming addiction, remarks that have put more pressure on officials to act....

17 comments:

Joe Smith said...

This is why they kick our asses in academics.

Parents in the US have the option to regulate online time for kids with the touch of a few buttons, but I doubt many of them do...

Yancey Ward said...

Now do vaccine resisters.

cubanbob said...

Maybe XI has concluded too many single me with no real prospects and living at home would rather play the games than work boring jobs and no love life.

Temujin said...

While I despise the ruthlessness and totalitarianism of China. I have to respect what they are doing here. As is, their students are far and away superior to ours in math and science. You will, in the coming years, see only Asian (mostly Chinese) people coming to work at Google, Microsoft, and the others. Our students will be using games and apps developed by these people.

Many of us have watched our society from before the internet and video games and after the infection of the internet and video games. We're up to our eyeballs in useless apps that eat up our time as well as our brains. Our young people cannot look you in the eye unless you are an avatar on their phone. It's nuts.

China is singleminded about their Belt & Road Initiative. And they are moving forward with it while we bet on which flavor our fading shell of a President will order today. We like to think of ourselves as being on a par with China, but we're more like Russia under Chernenko than America under Reagan.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I suggested on Reddit that parents should have that prerogative. Somebody responded; China is a different culture.

gspencer said...

What the left will NOT do - leave us alone

"The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men—the right to be let alone.”

-Justice Louis D. Brandeis in Olmstead (1928)

The Communist Party of China is the left's model.

https://fee.org/articles/the-right-to-be-left-alone/

Sally327 said...

I wonder if this will inspire someone to make a "Footloose" version of the ban. Probably not since it will seem critical of the Chinese. And we can't have that. It does seem as though this is a bit like our parents (if you're my age) worrying about how much time we spent in front of the TV and telling us to go outside and play. Of course nowadays parents are buying IPads for their 4 year olds. Playing on the computer is encouraged at an early age. I came to it late but have embraced it fully.

oleh said...

It is trite to observe that a totalitarian regime must eliminate all possible nests of organization that it does not control. Thus celebrity culture must be stamped out lest idol worshipping teens, meeting each other in fan forums, start building bonds along lines not inherently subservient to the party, using metaphor and code to subvert communist party tropes.

And video games, where male youth, aggressive by nature, possibly rebellious, can build a comradery not merely outside of party organizations, but often along martial lines on virtual battlefields - I can't see how the CCP can stand it.

The good news is that fewer western games companies, fewer western movie productions, fewer western stars, will be able to feed at the Chinese communist party trough. This is truly good for the rest of the world.

Howard said...

The chicom ccp people's republic can kick all the academia ass they want. This is a loser move in the real world. Not surprised some of you thinks it's a good thing to do. The puritanical hair shirt mindset runs right through America.

Skippy Tisdale said...

"You will, in the coming years, see only Asian (mostly Chinese) people coming to work at Google, Microsoft, and the others. Our students will be using games and apps developed by these people."

They work while we play? I'm not seeing a downside.

Kai Akker said...

Master God King Xi, please limit their gaming to zero hours. Then they will be miserable drones who never developed the quickness and dexterity to operate your massive, multiple warhead bombing system.

PM said...

Looks bad for America's youth. Political pressure or economic sanctions won't reverse Xi's decision. All we can do is unleash our woke community to cancel the Chinese.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Oleh has hit it on the head.

People can communicate with each other while playing games, in ways outside teh CCP's normal controls. So that must end.

And they might have story lines that the CCP doesn't approve of.

Xi Jinping is trying to tamp down every single possible form of resistance to the State.

Which means he's shutting down every single pressure relief value China has.

When teh blowup comes, the slaughter will be extensive, widespread, and insane

Yancey Ward said...

I do get what the Chinese are doing here. I am someone who came of age in the two decades before the internet was even a thing. I do think if I had grown up with the diversions the internet provides, I might well be living in poverty today. I don't have children, but if I did right now, there wouldn't be internet or television in the house, and no cell phones other than a flip phone. The consequences of these distractions will start to show up when we are depending on the 20 year-olds and younger of today to keep the lights on, the potable water flowing, and the cars running. Everything technical right now is kept functioning by people who are between 40 and 65 years old- people born before 1981 and raised to adulthood before 2000. We are entering the dangerous phase, depending more and more going forward on the skills and mental discipline of people raised to adulthood after 2000.

Achilles said...

This will not work.

And I wonder what the professional gamers will do.

Joe Smith said...

'I do think if I had grown up with the diversions the internet provides, I might well be living in poverty today.'

Well...porn addict or dotcom billionaire...one never knows...

Scott M said...

Well, crap. I'm China. This is my policy for my 11 and 13yo kids. They get electronics for music, art (stylus drawing and animation) and that's it. It works wonders.

That being said, I don't want the government telling me to do it or removing judgement from me on when to pause the rule as a reward.