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

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

#691

Post by grecy » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:01 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #664

treebot wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were imposed by a democratically elected government, would it still be a problem?

Yes, in my opinion. If a law like this were passed in the United States I'd be vocally campaigning to get the law repealed and the people who voted for it replaced in the next election. Sadly, the Chinese people don't have that option, which only makes the situation that much worse.

Do you vocally campaign to repeal the law that bans under 18s from consuming alcohol and cigarettes?

Do you vocally campaign to repeal the law that prevents you buying and using asbestos in their buildings?

Do you vocally campaign to repeal the law that prevents you from buying and owning an anti-aircraft missile system?

Our democracies have plenty of laws about things we're not allowed to do. Some of them are for our own good, some are for the overall good of society.

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

#692

Post by joshschreuder » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

lhorie wrote: post #687

China thinks that video games (specifically, the online variety) are harmful enough to children that it needs to be regulated at a federal level and children's exposure to games should be restricted. But here's the thing: We on the west do exactly the same thing for things like cigarettes, alcohol and gambling. The motivations behind all those restrictions are even similar (largely related to children's health/well-b…

I don’t agree that the restrictions are objectively similar. Cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling all have very well researched and understood physical and psychological problems over decades.

I’m not aware of any such research done into the effects of playing video games more than three hours per week (though would be interested to read it), so there’s a good chance that this is more than “government looking after the wellbeing of their citizens” in the same way as restrictions on the other things you mentioned.

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

#693

Post by onli » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:05 PM UTC

gallamine wrote: post #590

true_religion wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We restrict our kids to 30 min /day of screens. Try telling them it's not worth it. They are absolutely rabid about it.

Strictly limiting screen time fuels addiction. I'm utterly convinced about this and speak from experience. They can't learn to properly manage the ups and downs that way, all that remains are the ups, making it the best thing ever. That's why they are rabid about this.

It's also not something only I think, but I don't have a good resource at hand. Questions like this are always disputed anyway. When books came out they complained about the youth wasting their time reading books! (so much to the "reading a book is so much better" comment above.)

Half an hour is also completely unreasonable for playing most games. It rules out playing the good games, leading them to play the pay2win gambling bullshit. If the kids are very small, ignore what I write, but if they aren't think twice about this.

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

#694

Post by gorwell » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:07 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #415

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.

Australia seems to be rushing toward that future at an out of control pace.

You're not kidding. Notice the language they're using and how the government is granting "new freedoms".

"From September 13, NSW residents that are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be given new freedoms.

Residents of hotspots can leave home for an hour of recreation on top of their exercise hour, while people in other areas can meet five others outdoors.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the vaccination milestone of six million reached this week would allow for a small renewal in freedoms for residents with the jab."

https://twitter.com/9NewsSyd/status/1430707532134236163

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

#695

Post by adotbacon » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

Importantly this is limited to online games. The reuters article doesn't make that clear, but NYT / WSJ articles do [1][2].

Many online games use matchmaking which push you towards a 50% win rate which keeps you more interested than if you were to 'always' win or lose. Depending on the game, you might then spend money or grind time in an attempt to improve the resources available. And in some of those, 3 hours a week necessitates redesigning these games so that they're playable - at least segmenting China's user experience to retain interest. If this regulation can encourage developers to better respect gamers' time and resources, that's a win.

On the other hand, games with longer matches like DotA2/League in their standard modes may run too long to squeeze into an hour. I don't think the experience in those games themselves disrespects the time of users, but the 50% win-rate matchmaking and dream of getting out of 'dumpster tier ELO' can be problematic. On a hot streak or a cold streak? "Let's play til we win/lose."

Single-player games have less pressure and more ability to walk away at mostly anytime (especially these days with quick-save) so you're playing them more on your schedule rather than beholden to the game itself (really the people playing). Multiplayer creates a lot of replayability through the unique decisions other players are making.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/business/media/china-onli... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-sets-new-rules-for-youth-...

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

#696

Post by blacksmith_tb » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

dukeofdoom wrote: post #654

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…

> This line of reasoning is also supported by research on > correlation between games and violence (i.e. the consensus > is that no such causation relationship exists). On the face of it, this can't be true in all cases. Even Radio can be used to incite violence. A much less imersive medium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib... "Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to Jul…

That seems like a false equivalency, clearly your radio telling you to kill your neighbors is a much stronger incitement than a game where you run around shooting at imaginary people.

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

#697

Post by adamdusty » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:09 PM UTC

jumelles wrote: post #617

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

"You see my son, these children with limited human rights..."

It's a human right to play online video games?

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

#698

Post by hnjst » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

II2II wrote: post #382

lordnacho wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Half the time I spent gaming was spent figuring out how to get the computer to do what I wanted which lead to a life long interest in technology. I remember the old days of "extended memory" which meant you needed slightly different configuration files for each game. That meant if you wanted to play a bunch of games, it made sense to learn how to write a bat script to config according to what you wanted to play. Yo…

There is also the value of the skills being learned. Learning about extended memory may have been of value to some people in the day, but it had negligible value a decade later. It may have launched a few careers, but it did not have lasting value. Learning how to create batch files had more value since those skills were transferable to similar domains (e.g. Unix administration and software development). That being s…

Understanding low level architecture of that time (and early memory management) and first steps of the boot process is definitely something that has been useful to me since then. DOS batch files scripting no so much...

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

#699

Post by cmrdporcupine » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

adamdusty wrote: post #697

jumelles wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You see my son, these children with limited human rights..."

It's a human right to play online video games?

Our amazing world where video games are a human right, but health care and housing are not.

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

#700

Post by dlp211 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:16 PM UTC

honkdaddy wrote: post #645

knownjorbist wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is comparing apples and oranges, frankly.

I would say in both cases it's the government exhibiting control over its citizens lives under the notion that it's for their own protection. I think everyone has a point at which government control becomes tyranny. For some it's lockdowns during a pandemic, for others it's time-limits on video games. Seems like all apples, to me.

Your kid playing videogames 12 hours a day has no impact on my life. You giving me Covid does. These situations are not the same and the complete lack of nuance on when government authority is good and needed, and when it is bad and harmful is...well, I don't have the word(s), perhaps disappointing.

I don't get the desire to see everything as black and white and boil everything problem down to a slippery slope fallacy.