Chinese parents trying to set screen limits get new ally: The government
Under the draft regulations released by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the feature would limit 16- and 17-year-olds to two hours of internet usage a day. For 8-to-15-year-olds, it would be restricted to one hour, while children under 8 would be limited to 40 minutes a day.
The mode should also bar minors from using any apps between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the draft says. Online apps for education or emergency services would be exempt from the restrictions, and parents could also apply for various exceptions.
The draft regulations, which are subject to public comment and review, are the latest in a string of attempts by regulators to influence how Chinese children are being raised, from the amount of homework they receive to how much time they spend online playing video games.
They also come amid government efforts to influence the behavior of young Chinese who increasingly do not want to marry and start families or participate in the rat race of China’s ultracompetitive job market — both obstacles to dealing with the country’s demographic crisis and a sluggish economy.
Few are impressed with the latest measure, which the CAC said would “guide minors to form good habits” when it comes to using the internet.
“I am a 14-year-old girl and I support this policy. I was busy with my phone and now I can put it down and give birth in accordance with the three-child policy,” read one sardonic comment under a news report of the proposed rules, referring to the government’s 2021 loosening of limits on family sizes.
“It’s the parents who activate and set up the phones and have to constantly switch between the modes,” wrote another person, this time on the microblog Weibo. “In the end it’s just going to be a headache for parents.”
Another said: “You try using the internet for just two hours a day.”
The new rules would also require tighter regulation on content for minors. In addition to barring pornography or anything that would lure young users to disclose personal information, the regulator would ban activity related to celebrity “fan culture,” another online habit targeted by regulators in recent years.
Children should not be able to see content or groups that allow voting, commenting or crowdfunding for celebrities, the guidelines said.
The regulator also said content should “spread the core values of socialism” and the “excellence of traditional Chinese culture,” as well as cultivating young people’s “love of family and country.”
Previous government measures to limit screen time have had limited success. Regulators have been restricting the amount of time minors spend online playing games since 2019. In 2021, even stricter rules allowed children just one hour a day only on Fridays, weekends and national holidays.
Today, it is common for children to get around the limits by using unrestricted accounts, and there are numerous reports of parents simply giving their children their own log-ins. In a survey of 1,900 parents of minors by the China Youth Daily last year, more than 70 percent of respondents said the measures on online gaming had “limited” effect.
Similarly, in 2021, authorities banned private tutoring and ordered restrictions on homework to lessen the pressure on Chinese children, notoriously subjected to mountains of homework and hours of private tutoring. The policy gave rise to a thriving black market for private tutoring.
Chinese tech companies like Tencent and ByteDance will be the most affected by the new rules on minors’ internet usage. Tencent owns WeChat, and ByteDance operates the domestic version of TikTok, which is called Douyin.
Shares in Chinese tech companies — video platforms like Bilibili and Kuaishou, the microblog Weibo, as well as Tencent — fell Wednesday following the news. But most of them had recovered in trading in Hong Kong on Thursday.
Young internet users rallied against the proposed measures. “I spent my own money to buy a phone and now you want to take away my right to surf the internet? Do you know how important cellphones are to us?” one wrote on Weibo.
Others joked that the new measures wouldn’t matter: “Good policy,” one wrote. “Have a guess at how many minors there will be in the future” — a reference to the country’s falling birthrate.
Pei-Lin Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.
