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China Bans Kids From Gaming After 10pm, And Over 90 Minutes A Day

Petrae

Member
It’s sad that governments need to step in because parents can’t set limits. 2 hours of gaming a day should be plenty for kids, when considering school and extracurricular activities— not to mention working in some socializing.

I am not a fan of government intervention, but when parents refuse to set acceptable limits on screen time, the child’s physical, social, and emotional development all suffer.

Weekends are an exception, though I recall my mom (and parents of friends of mine) throwing me out of the house at 10am and not letting me back in until dark (except for meals). I prayed for rain, snow, or extreme cold so that my mom would have to let me stay indoors.

Government-ordered curfews and limits are not great, but I don’t really disagree with the limits set. It’s just too bad that parents haven’t or won’t set them first.
 

Mihos

Gold Member
I am actually in China right now, I really don't anyone here with kids, though, and only one person with an x-box..

Oh wow, GAF works without a VPN. I usually have that on as default.
 
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Gamernyc78

Banned
90 mins is probably too long for children, but it's a good start.

110% agree with this ruling. Gaming is fucking people up.

How is gaming fucking ppl up? Social media, internet in general is fucking ppl up and thts a shout out to all the social media zombies I see everyday in NYC streets almost getting hit by cars bcus they are not even looking up. I grew up gaming more hours than this curfew daily, still finished high-school and college (got skipped from 7 to 9th, grade, graduated with honors and now have a decent paying job) . It also didnt stop me from getting into working out and living a life.

Gaming has benefits in cognition, dexterity, etc but of course too much of anything is bad. It's digenous to say imo gaming is fucking ppl up.

I have a 12 year old who is doing fairly good in school, I do limit his gaming time on occasion but as long as he gets everything done, brings me good grades and does what he has to do I don't get strict on him.
 
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How is gaming fucking ppl up? Social media, internet in general is fucking ppl up and thts a shout out to all the social media zombies I see everyday in NYC streets almost getting hit by cars bcus they are not even looking up. I grew up gaming more hours than this curfew daily, still finished high-school and college (got skipped from 7 to 9th, grade, graduated with honors and now have a decent paying job) . It also didnt stop me from getting into working out and living a life.

Gaming has benefits in cognition, dexterity, etc but of course too much of anything is bad. It's digenous to say imo gaming is fucking ppl up.

I have a 12 year old who is doing fairly good in school, I do limit his gaming time on occasion but as long as he gets everything done, brings me good grades and does what he has to do I don't get strict on him.
There's exceptions to every rule.
 

Closer

Member
China just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Chinese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America where you can become successful by being an e-sports player. If you screw the Government over in China, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is Re-Education.
What this means is the Chinese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase Games for their PCs, nor will they purchase any of the World's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but China has alienated an entire Global market with this move. With Tencent reaping the rewards.

Xinneh, publicly apologize and cancel this law for your country or you can kiss your people goodbye via emigration.

Man, I love this template so much. It's legit Gold.
 
I support this... but government enforced... idk. Everyone here is going nuts. Some of you bastards probably putting 10 hours in a day arent you?
 

AlphaMale

Member
Such a good law to have. I really takes the state to make it a law for it to be followed. Parents yelling at their kids doesn't do anything; it's frustrating.
We need something like this in North America, but it'll NEVER happen...
 

Ichabod

Banned
Can't abide by this nanny-state bullshit. Be the change you want (whether that's for yourself or your children), don't leave it to some Orwellian government to do it for you.
 

Kazza

Member
China also recently mandated that all online classes should end by 9pm. Which is less odious to the kids, I'm sure; but it just shows how much power that government has.

It's funny, the Chinese government actually puts in similar measures to stop kids studying so hard (they realise that the education system has problems and that memorisation of large amounts on info for the sake of passing exams isn't the best way to prepare their kids for life in the 21st century). The government put a restriction on how much time kindergartens/nursery schools are allowed to teach math and Chinese each day (they thought young kids needed more time for sport, play, arts etc, not all day maths and Chinese), but some nursery schools would try to find a way around the restriction, teaching maths in secret away from prying eyes and cameras!

There is a common phrase in Chinese 上有政策,下有对策, which roughly translates as "The authorities have their policies, and the people have ways to avoid obeying the policies" Although China has become much more strict in terms of having to obey the law under President Xi, it's still pretty lax in many areas.

There are quite a lot of restrictions to what underaged kids can and can't do. And what can and can't be done to them by their parents.
So this isn't entirely unprecedented.

If these laws applied to people past 18, it would be an entirely different matter.

Yep, but when China does it we get all "Chinese man bad" about it. I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future in some western countries the government will reserve the right to remove your son's genitals without your permission if he innocently tells a teacher one day "I think I might be a girl". There's no chance of that happening in China anytime soon.
 
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Mass Shift

Member
Seems like a bit of an over reach to me. I don’t know what I would do if I lived in a country where the government tries to dictate what I do in my house.

It's really something isn't it? Any notion of freedom they think they have is an illusion when someone can dictate how your children are allowed to play in your own home.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
thumbnail












Just as I thought, the root of the damn world wide problem
 
As they say, China plays civilization as the west plays call of duty. BTW south Korea has had a similar scheme for over 10 years now.

4h max per day allowed its what i thinks is the most honest and acceptable..

:messenger_tears_of_joy:

If you knew anything about the typical day of a Chinese 5-17 year old kid, you would know that even 90 minutes a day of gaming is a luxury.

So here is a refresher;

Wake up at 7am. Have breakfast, get dressed and go to school. Arrive to school at 9am. Full on study until 12pm, no breaks. Then a 3 hour 'home break', where you go home, refresh, do some school tasks, have lunch and come back to school by 3pm. Then from 3pm-6pm more full on study at school, no breaks. Then you are let go and come home by 6:30-7pm. You spend the next 2 hours having dinner, doing homework, and preparing for tomorrows lessons. It is now ~10pm. You can now spend until 11:30-12am playing games, but you would only get 6-7 hours of sleep, which isn't enough for a child. Or you go to bed straight at 10pm, which is what most kids do. Hence the post-10pm ban.

And this only for kids in primary schooling. Forget about highschool, you got zero hours to game there except maybe on Sunday's.

This law is there to protect children and teens who's grades are slipping due to a gaming addiction, and even 90 mins a day limit may not be adequate for reasons stated above.

Even when school is not in session like the summer??? Thats when I did my most gaming back in the days. Stimulated me.

Not only is summer vacation in china just 2 weeks long, it is used as prep time to catch up on former schooling work, or if the child is ahead, to get even further ahead. Meritocracy demands sacrifice. STEM graduation demands hard work.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
3 hour home break? What a waste of time. So depending where the kid lives, he might waste an hour commuting back and forth in the afternoon? So a kid commutes twice to school every day?
 
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Petrae

Member
Sedentary activity like sitting in a chair and playing video games for 3-4 hours a day isn’t good for youths as their bodies develop. This kind of thing is why students get up in class and do things like go to different stations instead of sitting at desks for 6 hours.

China is citing obesity— which can be the result of sitting around and doing nothing.

Again— I’m not a fan of governmental intervention and enforcement, as I believe that parents should be doing this on their own. But if parents continue to stay hands-off and allow their kids to just sit around instead of getting them on their feet and doing things, like playing outside and getting some sort of movement or exercise, then I can see why governments feel the need to step in and save the kids from their parents and themselves.

There are other reasons to get kids off of screens after a limited amount of time, too. Education relies more and more on technology, where students are staring at computer screens for increasing amounts of time. Kids who sit at home and play video games for hours at a time every day lose valuable time socializing with others; and, no, online interaction isn’t the same as kids learning how to engage with peers face-to-face.

It’s not the fault of video games. It’s the fault of parents failing to take the general health and welfare of their kids into account. While there’s no definitive “limit” to how much gaming time kids should have, there needs to be an understanding of moderation and a movement to get kids to do other things, too.
 

FMXVII

Member
It's funny, the Chinese government actually puts in similar measures to stop kids studying so hard (they realise that the education system has problems and that memorisation of large amounts on info for the sake of passing exams isn't the best way to prepare their kids for life in the 21st century). The government put a restriction on how much time kindergartens/nursery schools are allowed to teach math and Chinese each day (they thought young kids needed more time for sport, play, arts etc, not all day maths and Chinese), but some nursery schools would try to find a way around the restriction, teaching maths in secret away from prying eyes and cameras!

There is a common phrase in Chinese 上有政策,下有对策, which roughly translates as "The authorities have their policies, and the people have ways to avoid obeying the policies" Although China has become much more strict in terms of having to obey the law under President Xi, it's still pretty lax in many areas.



Yep, but when China does it we get all "Chinese man bad" about it. I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future in some western countries the government will reserve the right to remove your son's genitals without your permission if he innocently tells a teacher one day "I think I might be a girl". There's no chance of that happening in China anytime soon.

Well, Chinese dads cannot have immortality in heaven without sons, so... yeah.
 

njean777

Member
Having seen it first hand, Chinese people have an extremely strange relationship with digital media. In my master's classes all of them were on their phones for the whole hour.

I know westerners tend to be addicted to social media and the like but China knocks them out of the park based on my experience.

So yeah, maybe a good thing.

When you take something away or limit it you are going to have a rebellious or curious culture. The likes of Americans and the western world being able to access social media anytime they like cheapens the reward stimulus. China censors or completely eliminates access whenever they want. I am not surprised they go nuts when all the limits are taken off.
 
We have to understand that gaming, to us, is different from gaming today. Back in the day when we played games for hours, those games though were strategy, rpg and resource dependant games (C&C, Civ), puzzle games like Monkey Island, Broken Sword, BaSS etc and number crunching RPG's like Baldurs gate and to a lesser degree; Fallout.

All of these games required higher than average intelligence, a good understanding of mathematics, cognitive reasoning and puzzle solving.

Contrast that with today where games are mindless collectathons, lootbox P2W shooters, which revolve around who has the best shit and who paid most for it and endless FtP dross. These games do nothing to increase ones' mental faculties and their sole aim is to make you addicted to playing more. Nothing else.

Look at the most popular games today, where the largest % of hours are put in to them. None of them have an ending. There's a very good, psychological reason for that.
 

Vitacat

Member
Such a good law to have. I really takes the state to make it a law for it to be followed. Parents yelling at their kids doesn't do anything; it's frustrating.
We need something like this in North America, but it'll NEVER happen...

I'm stunned to see people supporting this sort of authoritarian communist micro-control of people's lives. It's really horrifying to see people in free societies actually wish for more state control of their lives.

Or, did I just miss sarcasm in your post? I hope that's it.


:p
 
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If the consequence was your parents getting angry I'd agree completely, but when the consequence is that your social credit score puts you in the crosshairs of the organ repo men, that's something different entirely.

Who knew a decade ago that 'Repo: The Genetic Opera' was a documentary, especially when all organs are State Property.
 
I'm stunned to see people supporting this sort of authoritarian communist micro-control of people's lives. It's really horrifying to see people in free societies actually wish for more state control of their lives.

Or, did I just miss sarcasm in your post? I hope that's it.

Welcome to clown world. People are now willing to hand over the very rights and freedoms our ancestors worked and fought for their whole lives, all in the name of "This is too hard, please tell me how I should do everything so I don't have to think.

I love how people think making "Only 3 hours of gaming a day 4 kidz" a law would have any positive effects. More than half the country would adopt a "go fuck yourself" attitude to the law. Kids who don't respect their own parents sure as shit won't care what some greaseball politician governing the state tells him to do. What are they going to do, toss them in jail? Fine the parents? Or do these idiots also hope North America adopts a social credit system like China where being an actual drone is the ideal?

I grew up in the 80s, I'd tell my parents I'm going to a friend's house and they'd answer "Be back before dark, or call if you're staying over." If Mom or Dad thought I was playing too many games, they said "Go play outside." If my answer was no all it took was one look from my Dad and I was already outside on my bike going mach 2 in whatever direction I was headed. He never laid a finger on me, but I feared no one's wrath more than his, even through my teenage years, I had almost a half-foot and easily 100 lbs on him and the fear was always there. Don't piss Dad off, and don't disappoint him were actually important to me. When did people become such a bunch of wusses that their own kids are running the show? When did it become a thing that a snot-nosed little shit is mentally kicking the shit out of grown adults?
 
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Woo-Fu

Banned
This law seems unenforceable anyway.
You don't understand how Internet access works in China. With the additional mandate of linking real identities to online accounts and the control they already have via the great firewall of China they can monitor play times. I'm not saying it'll be easy but it is definitely feasible with how they run things.
 

Kagey K

Banned
All of these games required higher than average intelligence, a good understanding of mathematics, cognitive reasoning and puzzle solving.

Contrast that with today where games are mindless collectathons, lootbox P2W shooters, which revolve around who has the best shit and who paid most for it and endless FtP dross. These games do nothing to increase ones' mental faculties and their sole aim is to make you addicted to playing more. Nothing else.

I agree with you to a point. Sure there aren’t as many tough puzzles now in gaming, but even if there was they would go online and find a solution after they tried and failed once or twice. It’s the same reason games have a “meta” now everyone searched OP builds for whatever game they are playing and just do whatever it tells them to.

But I still think even for mindless shooters or collectathon games at least you are still participating. You are an active part of it and it still sharpens hand eye coordination. It’s better then passively watching some of the garbage TV and Movies for the most part.
 
Not everyone is equal. Some people can still be successful and play 6-7 hours of games a day. Limiting game time is dumb.
Sure, if by successful you meant neckbeards.
Welcome to clown world. People are now willing to hand over the very rights and freedoms our ancestors worked and fought for their whole lives, all in the name of "This is too hard, please tell me how I should do everything so I don't have to think.

I love how people think making "Only 3 hours of gaming a day 4 kidz" a law would have any positive effects. More than half the country would adopt a "go fuck yourself" attitude to the law. Kids who don't respect their own parents sure as shit won't care what some greaseball politician governing the state tells him to do. What are they going to do, toss them in jail? Fine the parents? Or do these idiots also hope North America adopts a social credit system like China where being an actual drone is the ideal?

I grew up in the 80s, I'd tell my parents I'm going to a friend's house and they'd answer "Be back before dark, or call if you're staying over." If Mom or Dad thought I was playing too many games, they said "Go play outside." If my answer was no all it took was one look from my Dad and I was already outside on my bike going mach 2 in whatever direction I was headed. He never laid a finger on me, but I feared no one's wrath more than his, even through my teenage years, I had almost a half-foot and easily 100 lbs on him and the fear was always there. Don't piss Dad off, and don't disappoint him were actually important to me. When did people become such a bunch of wusses that their own kids are running the show? When did it become a thing that a snot-nosed little shit is mentally kicking the shit out of grown adults?
Thanks for the wall of text life story dairy entry. But what the fuck are you on about?
 
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dalekjay

Member
For a KID, not a young adult or teen a Kid, that’s not even enough kid need to play with imagination to develop more and better also whatever bad habit as a kid is ten times stronger to remove from yourself, in the long game, China will benefit, but it should be a parents choice not enforced by government
 
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Tesseract

Banned
As they say, China plays civilization as the west plays call of duty. BTW south Korea has had a similar scheme for over 10 years now.



:messenger_tears_of_joy:

If you knew anything about the typical day of a Chinese 5-17 year old kid, you would know that even 90 minutes a day of gaming is a luxury.

So here is a refresher;

Wake up at 7am. Have breakfast, get dressed and go to school. Arrive to school at 9am. Full on study until 12pm, no breaks. Then a 3 hour 'home break', where you go home, refresh, do some school tasks, have lunch and come back to school by 3pm. Then from 3pm-6pm more full on study at school, no breaks. Then you are let go and come home by 6:30-7pm. You spend the next 2 hours having dinner, doing homework, and preparing for tomorrows lessons. It is now ~10pm. You can now spend until 11:30-12am playing games, but you would only get 6-7 hours of sleep, which isn't enough for a child. Or you go to bed straight at 10pm, which is what most kids do. Hence the post-10pm ban.

And this only for kids in primary schooling. Forget about highschool, you got zero hours to game there except maybe on Sunday's.

This law is there to protect children and teens who's grades are slipping due to a gaming addiction, and even 90 mins a day limit may not be adequate for reasons stated above.



Not only is summer vacation in china just 2 weeks long, it is used as prep time to catch up on former schooling work, or if the child is ahead, to get even further ahead. Meritocracy demands sacrifice. STEM graduation demands hard work.

you can sell this crock of shit however you want tickles, the government has no business making laws like this

PerkySmoothBoaconstrictor-size_restricted.gif
 

Kagey K

Banned
you can sell this crock of shit however you want tickles, the government has no business making laws like this

PerkySmoothBoaconstrictor-size_restricted.gif
Right that’s just fucked, imagine if your government said you could only browse the internet for 60 mins a day and after that 60 mins were up everything just shows up as blocked or not available.

Fuck that. I’m already a slave to society, what I do when I’m not contributing to society should be none of their business.
 

ROMhack

Member
When you take something away or limit it you are going to have a rebellious or curious culture. The likes of Americans and the western world being able to access social media anytime they like cheapens the reward stimulus. China censors or completely eliminates access whenever they want. I am not surprised they go nuts when all the limits are taken off.

Good point :messenger_ok:

I think these things also have a big appeal because they differentiate newer and older generations. Older generations didn't have choice in terms of the media they consumed because the country was much stricter (still is but less so). I read a paper during the degree I mentioned last post about the appeal of Starbucks in China. It suggested that younger people tended to see it as more appealing and, when asked why, said it was because it reflected a higher sense of freedom which they regarded as important to their sense of personal well-being.

Was very interesting to read and I can very much see how digital media, including videogames and blockbuster movies, really tie into the personality of younger people.
 
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Ryu Kaiba

Member
As fucked up as this is as least they're quick to do something about microtransactions in games. It will be another 20 years before U.S gets around to lootboxes in games.
 
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