The fight against net addiction continues

chiny24.com 1 year ago

The Chinese Cyberspace Administration (中国网络空间管理局) has proposed fresh regulations to prevent minors from becoming dependent on the Internet.

According to the proposed solutions, minors will not be able to browse online content during night hours (from 22:00 to 6:00). The regular limit on access to content on the network may be limited by age: (smartphones, iPads, computers, etc.) will be limited

- children under 8 years of age will be able to usage the net 40 minutes a day,
- age from 8 to 16 years – 1 hr a day
- young people aged 16 to 18 – 2 hours.

The limitation will cover the full time of access to content on the network regardless of the devices allowing access to it (computers, tablets, smartphones).

Applications and educational and emergency services will not be subject to restrictions.

Under the fresh rules, online platforms will be required to advance educational and popular discipline content for children under 16 and motivational content for teenagers under 18.

In contrast to erstwhile regulatory actions (conducted for 4 years) aimed at individual applications, this task requires the implementation of a “baby mode”, a “ teen mode” in a wide scope of smart devices, including smart watches designed for children and early education devices that let the usage of many games.

The fresh regulations are to enter into force after public consultation.

Internet addiction is simply a serious problem among minors in China. It impairs the average functioning of children and young people, becomes a origin of problems in science, and at the same time causes fast increases in imagination problems in the age group from 6 to 18 years.

In fresh years, online platforms have introduced various restrictions on the most popular amusement applications, limiting the access of minors to TikTok services or games. However, parents complain that these settings are besides easy to circumvent by their children.

According to the latest data of the China net Information Centre, in 2021, among children and young people aged between 6 and 18 years, there were 191 million net users, which represented 96.8% of this age group.