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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

#601

Post by madrox »

rank0 wrote: post #235

I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?

To play devil's advocate for a moment, is this different from age-gating we do anywhere else on the internet? We require you to be 18 or over to look at adult sites or view particularly edgy stuff on youtube. Is the difference just that there's an implicit wink going on because it relies on the user being honest about their age? I'm sure if we had a real ID system like China in place, laws would mandate its use given US attitudes about porn and gore.

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

#602

Post by [deleted] »

true_religion wrote: post #510
everdrive wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games work best as a lesser of many evils, and come with a few caveats: If you watch a lot of TV, it's hard to argue that video games are a worse use of your time. Video games do have some legitimate benefits, but it's probably hard to say that they are more beneficial than other things you could be doing with your time. (ie, reading difficult literature or articles vs. reading RPG text.) However, people aren't…

Sure but I’m not really comfortable with this level of government interference with peoples lives. No one ever stopped me from playing soccer for 5 hours a day when I was younger, and in high school sports practice was a 3 hour minimum. This restricts game play to 3 hours per week. That means essentially you can’t play video games for leisure … while at the same time you are forced to do a minimum of 40 hours a week…

[deleted]

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

#603

Post by simonh »

woofie11 wrote: post #425
rank0 wrote: post #235

I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?

I'm no more or less comfortable with authoritarian government than I am with an authoritarian market-based corporatocracy. Odds are that you are under an NDA which limits your freedom of speech. Odds are that if you refused to sign one, you couldn't afford a mortgage in a place with a lot of tech. Odds are you will sign more NDAs so your kids can keep going to the same school. The freedom of no regulation is an illus…

>Odds are that you are under an NDA which limits your freedom of speech.

These are mostly very specific, very limited and largely perfectly sensible. Yes some NDAs are onerous but they're quite rare. China has no concept of freedom of speech at all. It simply doesn't exist. I don't see how that's better.

>Companies will keep making what sells, even if it's bad for you.

We actually do have market regulation in the west, more in some countries than others, but it's a well established principle. You may disagree with the regulations we have, that's a matter of opinion, but we do have regulations on safety, quality, etc. If you want further regulations you are free to campaign for them, but the lack of any relations you might want is not a flaw in the system, it's just a consensus choice you disagree with.

>The CCP seems to be implementing a lot of measures which stand to increase overall quality-of-life...

All western states, even the US, have regulated labour markets including controls on working hours, minimum wages, mandatory breaks, etc. 996 is in practice illegal in almost every (possibly actually every) western country already. We are way, way ahead of China on this, so much so that you thinking China is breaking ground is frankly laughable.

Many countries already have guidelines in place on activities like video games. Public health systems recognise, provide advice and support, and even treatment for games addiction. The CCP is not breaking any novel ground on any of this. The fact is it has a woefully inadequate public health system and primitive social services that are so bad they have to resort to crude dictatorial mandates like this because it's all they have left. That is not a good thing.

>As a footnote...

Oh good grief.

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

#604

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rank0 wrote: post #235

I am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government? It’s about more than just online games. It’s about control. I’m sure the great firewall is perfectly fine as well?

I'm not in favour of governments doing this.

But I have to admit I will relish the opportunity to tell my (11 year old) son about this around the dinner table tonight (after he spent the whole day hiding inside playing Terraria and Minecraft)

And I wish as a parent I had the actual ability to enforce such a limit myself (maybe not so drastic). But the battle would be intense, futile, and conflict ridden. It's been tried.

The government has no business doing this, but there's something to be said for community / cultural standards and leadership. Parents in our society are on their own, fighting a tide of digital "addiction" without supports. And in fact key pillars of our kind of society (that is, corporations) are working to encourage screen time, rather than the other way around. A year of COVID isolation has made it so much worse, too.

I wonder what the outcome of this policy will be and if it will make China's youth more competitive and their society healthier. Or if it will be a total an abject failure and laughed at in a couple generations (most likely).

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

#605

Post by sk2020 »

staunch wrote: post #423
uncoder0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the last year of 'quarantine' for most of the Western world has made people more comfortable with authoritarian governments and actions. It's rather alarming how widespread and quickly this change in ideology has happened.

Temporary and mild authoritarian measures during a once-in-a-century pandemic make complete sense, even to very libertarian people. The U.S. has a track record of such measures being temporary, such as the much more extreme measures taken during WW2. Comparing this kind of thing to what China is doing is drawing a false equivalency. There is no legitimate comparison to be made.

>once-in-a-century

There’s a newsworthy virus (usually SARS-like) every 2-5 years. There are notable “variants” every few months. The perceived risk of COVID has a lot to do with reporting, which is fickle at best. Heart disease kills hundreds of thousands and we basically don’t care.

>temporary

Nixon’s closing the Gold window and Bush’s GWOT come to mind as substantial counter-examples. I don’t foresee the US politburo giving up on their newfound unlimited and totally arbitrary authority so long as their appointed brain trust says it’s for your own good. Their subjects might start to ignore them, though.

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

#606

Post by jliptzin »

bennysomething wrote: post #300
jliptzin wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is putting off other important things in their life to play video games then that's definitely a problem. However, if people want to set aside 100% of their free time to play video games, I don't think that's any worse than other things people do with their time that we (as a society) hold in high regard such as becoming a chess grandmaster, practicing violin 12 hours / day, watching football games nonstop…

Struggling to come up with a logical counter argument but learning a musical instrument is deeply satisfy as is listening to someone live who is good. Also maybe just in terms of being attractive to other people saying you are a level 122 mage in world of ever crack does not quite have the same allure as being able to captivate a room with your piano playing. Edit when I was about 12 I started playing the guitar non…

And if you personally don’t care about being attractive to other people for a variety of reasons?

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

#607

Post by miohtama »

steelframe wrote: post #595
miohtama wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learnt English thru video games. I would not be here without them. But arguable, modern games with lootboxes and metrics are way worse than 90s offline games.

> I learnt English thru video games To be honest I don't find this argument particularly convincing.

Haha, gotcha

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

#608

Post by streamofdigits »

What about edutainment type games? Will there be a censor deciding which game is eligible? The loopholes and ambiguities are many. This could backfire, especially if not enforced in some visibly meaningful and fair manner...

Caveat: I know next to nothing about the gaming universe in China :-)

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

#609

Post by m4eta »

TillE wrote: post #500
swman wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it really depends. I have way too many personal anecdotes of people I knew from back in the day (middle/high school) who gamed like 8 hours a day. Most of those people were _addicted_, and a handful went on to drop out of college and aren't really doing that great today. They still play 8+ hours a day.. I remember I'd ask them if they wanted to study, or if they want to go hiking or do something IRL, but they…

"Gaming addiction" is 99% depression and similar disorders. It's just not a thing on its own, it's a symptom.

Undervalued comment that doesn't vibe with mainstreams interpretation of "gaming addiction." I only became "addicted" after both my parents almost died of medical conditions. It's easier to write it off as "gaming addiction" in the same way certain drugs are "gateway drugs."

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

#610

Post by yazaddaruvala »

swman wrote: post #100
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…

I think it really depends. I have way too many personal anecdotes of people I knew from back in the day (middle/high school) who gamed like 8 hours a day. Most of those people were _addicted_, and a handful went on to drop out of college and aren't really doing that great today. They still play 8+ hours a day.. I remember I'd ask them if they wanted to study, or if they want to go hiking or do something IRL, but they…

If you want to get your message across to these types of people, you should first consider MMOs IRL. The friends, the responsibility, the schedules, and the socio-political skills are all very real.

It’s better to refer to hiking, etc as AFK.

Credentials: I grew up on 40+ hours a week of video games. I’ve played more than a year worth of screen time in World of Warcraft, I’ve gotten a Bachelors of Computer Engineering, and worked at Amazon for 8 years.

Meanwhile, I’ll tell you first hand, playing WoW from 16 to 19 prepared me more for being successful and getting promoted at Amazon than my 4 years of university.

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