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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

#961

Post by onli »

xpe wrote: post #744
onli wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Would you please contextualize your experience? What specific claims are you making and for what age groups?

There is really not much more. It's simply the observation that strict time limits lead to the time always being used, and augmented the value of the limited resource - video gaming here. The cigarette analogy in the other reply is great. I saw that with children age 10 to 15, for what it's worth.

You see that observation echoed in the context of alternative strategies, as described on https://www.additudemag.com/adhd-teens-video-game-rules-limi... for ADHD (whether that exists does not matter here, in any case the strategies listed there are not limited to it) for example. I read better sources, but I don't find them now, probably just some random articles with some experts attacking a majority position (that screen time limits are good) that I thought convincing, like they pop up sometimes.

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

#962

Post by eranima »

dang wrote: post #906
eranima wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"enemy"? What the fuck HN. edit: Xenophobic mods flagging my comment lol

You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly, using multiple accounts. I've banned two of them. If you don't want your main account to be banned, please stop abusing the site like this. This has nothing to do with your particular opinions; we don't know, or care, what those are. We ban accounts that repeatedly post flamebait comments regardless of what they're flaming for or against. No more of that, please. h…

I am not using multiple accounts, I don't know why you think I am. Calling out awful comments is not flame bait, it's calling out flame bait.

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

#963

Post by pknerd »

pknerd wrote: post #364

Seeing how people dying playing games like PUBG. I'd like my government also implement this. Though I don't know how could it be implemented. Must be at ISP level.

Uncertain why my comment triggered others. Google and you'd find stories. Do not take every other ban an attack against democracy.

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

#964

Post by honkycat »

machiaweliczny wrote: post #917
honkycat wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have family and friends who work in the game industry, and I can tell you it is none of the above. Here is the answer: Crappy gatcha games and skinner boxes branded with a popular IP marketed towards kids are: 1. Much easier to make 2. Makes A TON MORE MONEY. A gatcha game is basically a slot machine, which is basically a website with a fancy front-end. This means you can shovel out these games with low-skill labor…

Should we ban this?

I don't think it is realistic to ban, honestly.

I think there is probably some precedent from gambling laws we could apply to protect minors from predatory behaviour.

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

#965

Post by danbolt »

devteambravo wrote: post #580
krsdcbl wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, this fights the symptom, not the cause. Regulation should target companies that manufacture said addictive products, not dictate how citizens should behave under the guise of protection

I just don't buy the premise. Got it China bad. We're not acting better at home here in the US of A. You may disagree, but at the end of the day, you're walking with the same style of state surveillance in your pocket as any other. We cannot both be the cause of the problem and the solution. "not dictate how citizens should behave under the guise of protection". Do we live on the same planet???!

I think the author was suggesting that firms such as Electronic Arts and Activision be regulated in how they produce addictive patterns in titles like FIFA and Overwatch.

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

#966

Post by meristohm »

After reading and thinking more about this, I’ll add that in many ways I’m still an impressionable child who struggles with setting healthy limits (less so now three years into parenthood in my 40s), and regulations like these seem both draconian and helpful. Thankfully my parents said firmly “no” to me buying a videogame console while I was living at home. They’d seen how easily sucked-in I could be when we had an Atari, C64, 386, and while visiting friends with Nintendo. Better I spend my escape-time reading, and better still that they find a way to help me recognize and process my emotions, but none of us quite knew how at the time. I don’t blame them, mind; that’s a heavy burden to carry around. I’ll do better for my child.

While I am responsible for my actions, I am still learning and growing, and it is helpful to have government looking out for our collective health.

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

#967

Post by dang »

eranima wrote: post #962
dang wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly, using multiple accounts. I've banned two of them. If you don't want your main account to be banned, please stop abusing the site like this. This has nothing to do with your particular opinions; we don't know, or care, what those are. We ban accounts that repeatedly post flamebait comments regardless of what they're flaming for or against. No more of that, please. h…

I am not using multiple accounts, I don't know why you think I am. Calling out awful comments is not flame bait, it's calling out flame bait.

Apologies if I guessed wrong about multiple accounts.

"Calling out" is almost always flamebait in its own right. We're specifically trying to avoid the online callout/shaming culture here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...

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

#968

Post by [deleted] »

bigbob2 wrote: post #950
fma wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rem…

I mean the virus came from China so I guess they didn't do that great of a job of controlling it. Not only that but can we really trust the numbers China is reporting? They have been completely non-compliant with investigations which could have resulted in saved lives. Lots of people (most?) in the US seem to have the same brazen attitude of not wearing masks in crowded spaces. Not long ago CDC was advising that peop…

[deleted]

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

#969

Post by woofie11 »

simonh wrote: post #686
woofie11 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a famous quote attributed to Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” The only way we'll find better ones is if we keep exploring. It's not so much that I want more or fewer regulations, as I want to explore systems other than market-based incentives. I'm not sure that regulations + free markets will get us to a place where people aren't addicted to video games, eat h…

>I'll mention that I'm aware of where China is with regards to labor practices, freedom-of-speech, and so on, but with regards to public health systems, China is way ahead of the US. This is not true at all, I know because my wife is Chinese. Almost everyone is covered by health insurance in theory, but in practice this has limited use by most people because it only covers 50% of costs, and less than that for serious…

> On experimentation, communism and authoritarianism have been tried many, many times. There's nothing novel or experimental about it. We know it sucks. We know what Taliban style Islamic theocracies are like too, Afghanistan has been under one before remember?

And Democracy was tried several times during the French Revolution, as well as in many countries in Africa, to great failure. You can't generalize from small n.

It's really unclear how Communism would have worked out if not for Stalin. Communism isn't fundamentally authoritarian. The concept of workers soviets as a political system sounds pretty plausible to me. Things played out that way, but it's only been tried once.

And as far as a planned economy, I think the feasibility really changes with access to computers which can simulate complex systems. Market economies are a greedy algorithm. It's likely there's a better system.

What I like in the current Chinese model is market economy for commodity businesses (like restaurants) and central control of rent-seeking ones (like banking). That seems more efficient. I also like the concept of systems of governance which are more meritocratic (which contrasts with populist ideals in the US), where competent people make decisions, and where you can plan strategically over long periods. I don't think China has yet stumbled on the right model there. But they're trying.

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

#970

Post by danielyaa5 »

I’m appalled at how many people are defending this. I don’t think it’s comparable to any other western bans, I.e alcohol and tobacco. We don’t ban anything that goes into a child’s mind as long as their parents consent. Just because video games aren’t in societies best interest doesn’t mean a child should be barred from doing what they love. Man it’s so hard to fit in for some people and this is there escape. This really seems like just another of the hundreds of rules China uses to sap the absolute freedom and childhood out of kids. The school schedule is absolutely insane. I do think this will have negative effects on the Chinese culture
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