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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

#591

Post by goostavos »

devnulll wrote: post #501
goostavos wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know where people are coming from any more. Like literally everyone else in tech who knows how the sausage gets made, I'm appalled by the teams of Ph.Ds which exist solely to exploit the dopamine response of children. However, it never would have ever crossed my mind to jump from "here's a particular problem" to "the government should control how much of a specific activity your child can do at home"

There are all sorts of things governments express control over, even at home. The obvious scenarios are alcohol, nicotine & drugs. As a parent of young children, there are addition parallels between Minecraft / Roblox / Alcohol / Cigarettes. To a real degree, more effort is put into making gaming deliberately additive - although flavored vaping (bubble gum, cotton candy, etc) would like to enter the conversation.

I don't know if we're coming at it from the same angle if we're lumping Minecraft in with alcohol and cigarettes. To your initial point, though, just because the government currently expresses control is not actually an argument that they should continue to do so or be granted additional powers to do more. Because it's normal, doesn't mean it's correct.

Flavored vaping products are for sure bad. I'll happily give you that. I'll also give you sugar, processed food, alcohol, cigarettes, McDonalds, and a near never ending supply of things we regularly consume (food, entertainment, or other).

I wouldn't petition the government to control access to any of them. I tend to trust the millions of individual personal (or parental) decisions over the long haul more than I do centrally planned, top-down mandates.

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

#592

Post by pmontra »

jliptzin wrote: post #203
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…

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…

By the way, is playing chess online or against a local AI regarded as a video game or is there an exemption for traditional games? For sure Chinese professional weiqi (go) players played a lot of games online when they were younger than 18.

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

#593

Post by imtringued »

andrepew wrote: post #113
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…

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…

Video games gave me the motivation to learn English, about machining, CAD, PCB design, economics and programming. Anyone who is against leisure is falling into the existential trap of capitalism. What is the meaning of doing productive work inside a video game? Since productive work is now leisure you actually run into the existential problem all the time. The video game runs into deflation all the time. People are highly productive, reducing the need of other players to be productive.

In fact, the very thing we beg for is an increase in the money supply. We are hoping for inflation. Meanwhile in the real world everyone is scared of that inflation thing. My latest project is literally pumping NPC vendors with basic resources to create money out of thin air to generate inflation. The paradox of creating money is that it makes people work and end up doing more "productive" work.

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

#594

Post by fma »

sergiomattei wrote: post #346
birbs wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because an authoritarian government made a decision doesn’t necessarily mean the decision was authoritarian. In the U.S., it’s somehow become popular opinion that the government shouldn’t do anything. Without the ability to make coordinated decisions, the U.S. has predictably fallen behind on a wide variety of metrics (income equality, health care, education, mass transit, etc.) You should reflect on why you vie…

But this is authoritarian. Why should the government control how I manage my time? I'm pretty sure this site would be pretty outraged if the government decided we could only code 3 hours a week. And please don't use the "but coding is constructive!1!" argument. A good use of time is defined by whoever spends it, not whatever someone else's idea of wasting time is. As a case in point, playing hours of Splitgate has ke…

I live in the state of Georgia where most of the state belives in the "smaller the government the better". Alcohol sales can't happen during certain hours on Sundays...all because of...wait for it...religion. LOL.

Why should the government tell stores & restaurants when they can or cannot sell alcohol? How can the government tell me when I can, or cannot buy/consume alcohol. How is that a benefit to society? Why is it in a country codified for separation of religion and government are they allowed to have this in law?

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

#595

Post by steelframe »

miohtama wrote: post #558
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…

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.

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

#596

Post by md5madman »

adventured wrote: post #570
ericmay wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have mixed feelings about this. I don't. If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach.

> If this were to be proposed in America I would view it as extreme government over-reach. It is an extreme government overreach, whether in the US or China. It's an abuse of human rights. China is about one step away from treading into classic Mao Communist cultural attack mode. The interesting thing about pursuing so much control, is that more control requires ever more control, it's a negative spiral. More oppress…

thanks for scaring the shit out of me

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

#597

Post by teitoklien »

kaibee wrote: post #350
lostmsu wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will not work well for people with multiple kids. Also, imagine influx of games for services to handle.

> This will not work well for people with multiple kids. Ah, fortunately they planned for that way ahead of time.

Damn

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

#598

Post by 1270018080 »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #581
echelon wrote: post #377

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. Half of the US is up in arms about it, for better or worse. I think you'd have a hard time imposing anything on the US. The other half doesn't think immunizations are authoritarian, just science. Maybe 1% of the loud and attention grabbing people on either side of the…

That 1%, if they are loud enough, can move overton window for the whole society. Recall how fast vaccine passports moved from a crazy right wing conspiracy theory to an obvious and necessary measure. Last year is full of such examples.

I think you have it backwards. In the last year, vaccines passports (in other words, immunization records) went from an obvious and necessary measure to a crazy wight wing conspiracy theory.

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

#599

Post by fma »

bigbob2 wrote: post #511

Really strange decision to make in the middle of a pandemic. You would think they would be encouraging activities which enable social distancing, not banning them.

Chinese citizens: "What pandemic?"

The Chinese government was able to control the pandemic because they are authoritarian. Meanwhile Florida just received 14 portable morgues.

Before I get the "Fake News" crowd coming at me...I was on a video conference call last week with my Chinese counterparts in my company (my first meeting) and I was taken aback when everyone in the conference room didn't have masks...then I remember their spread is basically nill.

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