Summary of proposed limits by Twitter user @Orikron
🇨🇳 China is set to limit the amount of time children spend on the internet:
16 to 18 - 2 hours
8 to 16 - 1 hour
Under 8 - 40 minutes
No internet access on children’s devices from 10pm-6am
Parents will be allowed to opt out of the time limits for their youngsters.
Edit: additional info from @qwename@lemmygrad.ml:
Parents can change default time limits
Reminder to rest every 30 minutes
Apps not subject to time limits include:
- Emergency-related (safety, emergency calling etc.)
- Approved educational apps
- Tools suitable for minors (image processing, calculator, measurement etc.)
- User-defined by parents
Full draft available in Chinese: http://www.cac.gov.cn/2023-08/02/c_1692541991073784.htm
One of the main complaints I’ve heard from kids in my area around 10 years and up is that banning them from the internet is essentially isolating them. Most families do not have home phones any longer, so their only way to communicate is often via online apps.
I think setting reasonable limits is important, but it may also be necessary to make sure children still have ways to socialize with other children regularly outside of school. Granted, I know nothing of how this works in China and maybe it’s a non-issue there.
I was talking to someone the other day about how hard it would be to raise kids with technology. Do you take the slot machine out of their pockets until they’re some arbitrary age? Will the good that does outweigh the harm of not being as socially connected as their peers?
The return of dumbphones might be a solution, but smartphones do so much (think GPS) and are required for so much that this has its own problems.
I am childfree but a lot of my close friends have kids now, and this is a huge topic of conversation for all of them. Working out how much time they spend on devices, what they do on the devices, etc. They don’t want to segregate their kids from learning important technologies at a young age, but neither do they want their kids to be online 24/7. I honestly don’t envy the situation.
I think these restrictions are honestly a pretty good baseline guideline.
I wonder if there will be an exception made for texting or calling, since the article mentions Internet addiction specifically and parents probably want their children to be able to contact them 24/7
For emergency calling and contacting parents, yes.
As far as I know they can restrict access to certain types of internet services, like games, social media, etc, so it’s pretty far from whole-internet blocking. It would be pretty reasonable to keep a messaging and calling app open, limited to friends and family of course, along with online school resources and educational content, as well as general things that have artistic or literary value and don’t pose a risk of addiction.
Makes sense, a limit as strict as 8 minutes for the youngest kids seriously inhibits basic communication, so really this either has to iterated on or a great deal of parents will just opt out so it has no effect.
It’s actually 40 minutes for minors under 8, not sure where the original person got 8 from.
40 minutes is completely workable!
Also, this is minors under EIGHT. You can barely wipe your ass at eight. 40 mins a day of unrestricted internet access is extremely generous at that age, maybe even too generous. I’d argue that they shouldn’t even have direct access to the internet. When I was eight I watched what my parents let me watch, and if I complained, I got banned from the TV and computer for a month.