Things China has decided to limit recently:
- kids getting tutored
- kids playing video games
So, what are they expecting the kids to be doing? Putting together the revolution -against- the CCP?
Apparently Xi Jinping never tried sneaking in a few hours of Pong while his dad was out governing and too busy to watch him
Also teen celebs
Watch state-sponsored TV?
3 hours a WEEK seems awfully harsh, even accepting that it doesn’t include offline games or television.
I honestly don’t think it matters too much the form of screen time, although I guess online gaming has greater potential for cyber-bullying. (Is that a problem in China? Seems like they might be better able than us to control it, but I’m way out of my wheelhouse here.)
Monkey king soap operas.
Seriously, this could be a big deal if it was expanded to other screens. With just online games I’m not sure it means much.
Making cheap products for export.
My guess is to push back against kids idolizing/pursuing an actual job in competitive video games as South Koreans tend to be the best in the world.
I don’t know. Games can be addictive in a way similar to slot machines. It’s peculiar to me that we outlaw one but not the other.
I wonder if part of it has to do with cyber cafes. Last I visited china they were basically everywhere, since personal computers/wifi were not universal. And they were basically packed of kids obsessively playing pirated games and MMOs all day. It’s easy to imagine how those places could get a bad reputation.
I think they have conflicting policies.
Limiting video games but encouraging parents to have up to 3 kids?
Don’t some online games have chat or other features that allow or can be used for difficult to track communication between players?
Yeah, I could imagine real concern that kids wearing dragon-scale armor and head-shotting each other through sniper-scopes while talking to each other about how Tibet should be free.
I don’t think it would be any easier or harder to police than any other online chatting service, except that there are simply a lot of online games out there.
I think China would have to white-list a handful of games in order to maintain the same level of surveillance it has with chat-programs.
Okay, so according to one of my friends, these rules have been around for years… but kids get around them via borrowing IDs from adult family members. That’s why this is a detail:
Online gaming companies must ensure they have put real name verification systems in place
Though, if the parents want to keep the kids occupied, evidently, they still can give the kids access to their accounts:
It noted minors could still use their parents’ accounts to bypass the restrictions and said parents and schools also need to step up supervision.
They talk about “video game addiction” and also increased near-sightedness (that’s not so bad! though I guess you don’t want your soldiers wearing glasses), as well as military drills for those “addicted”.
All that said, it may be just trying to cut down pop culture (as it were) to size:
Beijing is worried about personality cults. At least any not centred on Xi Jinping.
“Xi Jinping thought” is now compulsory teaching at schools. “Xi Jinping urges” features in almost every state-controlled news report.
But the lives and acts of entertainment celebrities remain much more popular on social media chat rooms. Little wonder celebrity fan culture is not something Xi considers to be a Chinese characteristic.
The video game thing may just be a part of “nothing outside the state” or, rather, “nothing outside Xi”
and more:
it’s a whole cultural thing, though not yet a revolution.
Also, cracking down on pictures of short chubby Chinese people who look like Winnie the — Wait!! Who are you guys?! What are you doing in my house!!!