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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

#821

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cenophor wrote: post #815
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've heard from various Mainland Chinese people: that many of them thinks western media brainwashes us (think the thing about Olympic photo coverage of Chinese medalists) and many condemn westerner take on social matters (the US' handling of [COVID], for example, is seen as a "proof" that the our infatuation with freedom has severe failings). That's clearly anecdotal because I worked and lived there for a year rece…

It depends on your environment. Say if you are at a university or something with students it will be very different than if you are working for a tech company with your Chinese co-workers. Also, southerners tend to be less nationalistic than northerners, so if you are in Beijing it is very different than if you are in Shanghai or Shenzhen (though if you are working at a tech company, your co-workers will be from all over China).

I've had co-workers who were really harmonious river crab, and some that were very non-harmonious grass mud horse...all in the same team. Outside of work, I didn't really talk about politics at all, it just never seemed to be that important beyond a lunch topic.

China was going in the right direction under Hu, if only because Hu was a weak leader. The authoritarian uptick really came back with Xi, and now that Xi has basically become president for life, it is really reinforced. It is a bit disheartening to see China move to being more liberal to more authoritarian all in a few short years. The trend probably won't change for a generation or two.

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

#822

Post by trompetenaccoun »

keyb0ardninja wrote: post #410
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.

This is exactly what F. A. Hayek warned us about in his book The Road to Serfdom.

I don't know why this man has such a large following outside of economics. There are a lot of better analysis of how such oppressive systems form. I respect Hayek but The Road to Serfdom is a boring read.

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

#823

Post by lurgburg »

barnesto wrote: post #737
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…

All good points, but the main issue here is the government, in this case the CCP, dictating game play. It's the parent's responsibility to dictate when and how their children play games not the government. If the government wants to go after game developers because their games are addictive that's one thing. Dictating to the players is a level of control free citizens should never experience. Although, in this case,…

OTOH an individual parent has to expend a lot more effort to create controls than a government. An individual parent can't mandate technology companies install controls that automatically regulate their child's play; they have to manually monitor+manage it at some cost of time+effort to themselves.

A wonkish trick would be for the government to mandate controls with sensible defaults but allow parents to tune them I guess?

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

#824

Post by thephyber »

rsanek wrote: post #786
nearbuy wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our restrictions came about through a democratic process A democratic process where most of the people affected weren't allowed to vote.

Not sure how this is at all relevant? In both cases children under 18 aren't allowed to vote. Or do you mean they should be allowed to have a say in this?

The vast vast majority of citizens in either country do not play a part in legislation.

The USA has lobbying, which is seen by the rest of the OECD countries as a legalized form of bribery. This allows regulated industries to corrupt and otherwise influence the regulation of their own industry. The USA might very well have similar restrictions to China on say prize boxes in video games if not for the outsized effect of industries on legislators.

The US also has a history of actual disenfranchisement and state legislators gerrymandering away the influence of a large minority of votes for Congress.

The effect is that the US actually has a complicated system of perverting the democratic system, whereas the Chinese system doesn’t even try to appear democratic, thereby appearing at least more honest about what it is.

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

#825

Post by neltnerb »

lordnacho wrote: post #208
andrepew wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that playing a game might not improve a class of skills in general like coordination or problem solving, but I don’t think it requires much study to determine improvement of skills directly used. For example, to improve your reading skills you need to practice reading. If a game is providing reading material and motivation to read, it will improve reading skills. Games can also drive motivation in other areas…

> 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…

I do truly hope that this is a case where multiple starting points ultimately end going to the same place, largely. There are multiple entry points and what was a good entry point when we were young is not the best way anymore.

For one thing, now there are fairly easily reprogrammable boards that can do things like power motors for which you need to learn real programming just to start, even if you're using an example.

I am worried that a level of comfort with computers that we may have due to being there during the evolution will be gone, I certainly learned to type over 120 words per minute by playing a MUD, far more important than my actual honest-to-god typing class. I think-type, which is a result of endless text conversations and emails.

Are those fundamentally important skills? Why? At some level if they are skills which are needed there will be a reason to learn them.

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

#826

Post by fouric »

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…

> We on the west do exactly the same thing for things like cigarettes, alcohol and gambling.

At least in the case of alcohol, the guardians of a child are explicitly allowed to "override" that restriction (with some caveats e.g. in some states you have to be in a private residence) - so, at least there, it's pretty clear that the law is there to protect random underage children (something something executive function not completely developed until roughly age 25) from making huge mistakes with dangerous things that are still allowed to be sold.

If the same does not apply to cigarettes or gambling, that's an oversight.

I don't believe the Chinese law under discussion has any sort of exception.

Moreover, the difference in scientific evidence for the harmfulness of cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling is significantly greater than the evidence for the harmfulness of video games.

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

#827

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

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…

unrelated question: what are your suggestiong for text based RPG games (browser based) for this day and age?

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

#828

Post by WiSaGaN »

China hasn't forbidden them plaing games. China has forbidden them from playing online games for more than 3 hours a week. You can play GTA 5, the last of us, the witcher 3 just fine. No one will care if you play Inside for 8 hours a day either. What the government and Chinese parents do care, is not let children play too much those games designed to cause addition, and constant in-game purchasing .

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

#829

Post by c0nducktr »

dillondoyle wrote: post #793

One point I haven't seen brought up yet is the amount of interaction and forum type communications that happen in modern games within the context of CCPs wanting to control all online speech. The TV show Occupied (norway Okkupert) has a fun example where a militarized group uses video game live audio chat to secretly communicate and pass info. I think there are memes about COD waiting rooms too illustrating digital f…

I recall back during the early days of the "war on terror" Afghanistan war / Iraq war, there were statements that terrorists were using WoW servers for planning attacks lol

Edit: Found a story about it - https://www.wired.com/2008/09/world-of-warcra/

> Toavs, for one, believes that spies will have to spend more time in virtual worlds like WoW, if they want to have a hope of keeping tabs on what goes on inside 'em. Which means, some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.

Truly absurd. Sounds to me like someone at the CIA just wants to play WoW instead of working.

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

#830

Post by aaron695 »

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 am appalled by all the supportive comments in this thread. Why are HN users so comfortable with authoritarian government?

Because not everyone here is a knee jerk racist is why. Just most.

Children in all countries have restrictions.

The firewall has nothing to do with this. Unless you want to relate it to the actual Chinese policy document?

What's the authoritarian reason for limiting homework in this?

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