Smartphones have taken over a lot of activities ever since they became more widely used. Due to everything that the device can provide, there's a tendency for users to spend hours upon hours on it, and China is looking to cut that back for users under 18.
Cutting Back on Hours
Those under 18 years old in China might be seeing less of their smartphones soon. The Cyberspace Administration of China proposed a draft of rules stating that their screen time will only be a maximum of two hours a day, and that's just for the 16 and 17-year-olds.
For teens and kids in the eight to 15 age bracket, they will have a shorter time limit of an hour per, even less with children under eight years old with just a 40-minute daily screen time. Those under three years of age would not even be allowed to have screen time and are limited to audio.
As mentioned in Engadget, it won't just be the number of hours that will be restricted. The draft also states that devices cannot be used between 10 PM to 6 AM, and parents will have access to smartphones to restrict the kind of content that the children see.
It all boils down to China's efforts to resolve addictive behavior in children, with the government expressing that the prolonged use of smartphones, games, and services might have a negative effect on their development.
The draft is merely a proposal right now, which means that there are other factors to consider before it is approved which includes public consultation, and that's not even the hardest obstacle to go over. There's still the matter of implementation.
One of the many unanswered questions is whether it will be the hardware of the operating system that's going to change to accommodate the kids mode. Tech manufacturers and developers will have to make changes to conform with the potential rule as well.
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Not the First Restriction
This is not the first time that China made plans in limiting screen time. Back in August 2021, the country also proposed to restrict children from playing online games to just three hours a week, which is far stricter than the two-hour per day limit.
If the person is under 18 years old, then they fall under the restrictions. The limit is not stretched out through the week. The affected age group can only play for an hour a day between 8 PM to 9 PM on weekends or legal holidays, as reported by CNBC.
The responsibility to restrict those under 18 years of age has also fallen to companies that offer game titles and services to minors, which means they cannot serve the affected age group outside the designated time and date.
According to reports, there were over 110 million minors who play video games in China then, and they expected the new limits to result in a decline in the number of players, as well as a decrease in the amount of time and money spent in games.
