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China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

reuters.com

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Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#141

Post by mullingitover »

tgv wrote: post #8

Anyone want to argue why this would be bad, apart from restricting freedom? BTW, nothing in the article about limits on TikTok or YouTube or whathaveyougot. That's as much opium as gaming, IMO.

> Anyone want to argue why this would be bad, apart from restricting freedom?

Children don't have freedoms, they have whatever their parents decide they can have. As a child in the US, your parents can legally assault you and can send you to what is effectively prison ('military schoool,' but same concept). You rarely hear any complaints about this being a crisis.

If parents in China want their kids playing more video games they can just create an account for them and it's business as usual. This is more of a signal from the top that excessive screen time for children isn't a thing that society approves of.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#142

Post by gwright »

tgv wrote: post #8

Anyone want to argue why this would be bad, apart from restricting freedom? BTW, nothing in the article about limits on TikTok or YouTube or whathaveyougot. That's as much opium as gaming, IMO.

I have no opinion on whether playing games for 3 or 5 or 8 hours a week is good or bad for people under 18.

I do feel like a government (never mind central government) having the power to legislate at that level of micro-management is very bad. There would seem to be absolutely no limiting principle to what is appropriate or not appropriate to be legislated if you accept this level of government oversight as acceptable.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#144

Post by VanillaCafe »

bluishgreen wrote: post #131

Title should read: China has forbidden under-18s from playing VIDEO games for more than three hours/week

Title should read: China has forbidden under-18s from playing ONLINE VIDEO games for more than three hours/week.

(And even ONLINE may not be quite precise enough.)

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#145

Post by tejohnso »

With school out for summer, my preschooler is either playing a video game or watching youtube for hours on end. We try to force some time away from screens but it is a never ending struggle, as screen use is the immediate, default state to return to. I find most of the youtube content worse than the gaming, but neither are all that great.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#146

Post by gentleman11 »

namelessoracle wrote: post #7

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as a…

You have to differentiate real games from casino games. Many popular games have a substantial casino element and are basically skinners boxes and need to be controlled like casino games. I saw job postings a little while ago for mobile games that require experience making slot machines

There are a lot of games that fall into grey areas, possibly accidentally, and those are harder to deal with. Loot boxes and mmos are so obviously gambling that I don’t even know what to say

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#148

Post by zepto »

hollerith wrote: post #38

The rates of rule breaking and law breaking are much higher in China than they are in the West. One of my goals if I were in charge of the Chinese government would be to get that rate down by making what rules and laws I introduce easy to enforce (and easy to understand and to follow). In particular, if I were going to impose this kind of ban, I would've made it apply to everyone, not just under-18s. Well, actually,…

> a boy

Seems odd that you’d only apply this to boys.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#149

Post by sulam »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #115
namelessoracle wrote: post #7

I have mixed feelings about this. Younger me learned a lot of problem solving skills and most importantly spent a lot of time learning how to read by playing RPGs and games that required lots of reading. My reading skills would not have been as advanced if i wasn't playing text heavy games that had a lot of plot like Square Enix games and the CRPGs of the time. Modern games though are clearly designed to get you as a…

Goodness. If this was the US, I would be losing my mind over such legislation. We must not convince the law makers that video games can be beneficial. That puts the wrong emphasis on the conversation. The emphasis must be, you have no jurisdiction when it comes to raising children. Your laws are invalid. Even if video games are detrimental, you do not decide what is the best interest for a child, the parents do.

Speaking as a parent of two kids, I mostly agree, but also think that some amount of law-making in the interest of children is appropriate and fair. Drawing the line is the interesting part.

Re: China has forbidden under-18s from playing games for more than three hours/week

#150

Post by blackbear_ »

lhorie wrote: post #91

People talking about the benefits of games reminds me of people talking about the benefits of, say, a glass of wine with every meal: it's worth looking into but at the same time it's the sort of thing that obviously doesn't scale linearly with the amount/intensity of consumption. I similarly have mixed feelings as well, but for slightly different reasons. I've read about studies that say that musical training (which…

> ... it's the sort of thing that obviously doesn't scale linearly with the amount/intensity of consumption.

Is there anything that actually scales linearly? I thought the law of diminishing rewards applied to pretty much anything you do.

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