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’m not a huge fan of enforced time restrictions either, kids or otherwise. In an ideal world, society would be set up such that kids can play however they want with the resources they have access to, without harming their development, and limits like these would not be needed. HOWEVER, this is not an ideal world. Companies are doing everything they can to capture your kids’ attentions and not let them go, siphoning them in with dark patterns created by psychologists that children do not stand a chance at defending themselves against. They can easily ruin their future through addiction to internet services that’s been expertly crafted to get them addicted, and it’s the fault of capitalism, which sadly does also exist in China. Under these conditions, while an enforced time limit is far from ideal and will be hard on both the parent and child, it is currently the best way to protect children from capitalism IMO. If we want to see these restrictions become obsolete and no longer imposed, we need to crack down on the actual causes of these things, which is the internet services themselves and make sure they operate ethically (non-capitalistically) before we can chance giving children unlimited access to them.