Should There Be Limits on How Much Time Young People Spend Playing Video Games?

China announced this summer that children and teenagers can now play just three hours of video games a week. Young people under 18 are barred from online gaming on school days, and limited to one hour a day on weekend and holiday evenings.

Chinese government officials — and many parents — have long worried about the potential downsides of playing video games. Do you see any downsides? Do they worry you, too?

Do you think there should be limits on how much time young people spend playing video games? If so, should the government make those limits? Should parents and families?

In “China Tightens Limits for Young Online Gamers and Bans School Night Play,” Chris Buckley reports:

China’s strict limits on how long minors can play online video games just got stricter. Chinese children and teenagers are barred from online gaming on school days, and limited to one hour a day on weekend and holiday evenings, under government rules issued Monday.

The rules, released by the National Press and Publication Administration, tightened restrictions from 2019 aimed at what the government said was a growing scourge of online game addiction among schoolchildren. Under the old rules, players under the age of 18 were limited to no more than 90 minutes of gaming on weekdays and three hours a day on weekends.

Parents had complained that was too generous and had been laxly enforced, the administration said. The new rule sets the permitted gameplay hour to 8 to 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The government said it would step up inspections to ensure that gaming companies were enforcing the restrictions.

And in “New Limits Give Chinese Video Gamers Whiplash,” Paul Mozur and Elsie Chen report:

Minors still find ways around government blocks. Chinese tech companies, like Tencent, are cornerstones of the global gaming industry. The country has also been quick to embrace competitive gaming, building e-sports stadiums and enabling college students to major in the topic.

Yet China’s relationship with games is decidedly complex. A major source of entertainment in the country, games offer a social outlet and an easily accessible hobby in a country where booming economic growth has disrupted social networks and driven long work hours. The multiplayer mobile game Honor of Kings, for example, has more than 100 million players a day.

For years, though, officials — and many parents — have worried about the potential downsides, like addiction and distraction. As a more paternalistic government under the Chinese leader Xi Jinping has turned to direct interventions to mold how people live and what they do for fun, gaining control over video games has been high on the priority list. In addition to other pursuits, like celebrity fan clubs, Mr. Xi’s government has increasingly deemed games a superfluous distraction at best — and at worst, a societal ill that threatens the cultural and moral guidance of the Chinese Communist Party.

Students, read one or both articles, then tell us:

• Are Chinese government officials and parents right to worry about negative side effects from playing video games? Why or why not?

• How much time do you spend playing video games? Have you ever experienced negative side effects? Do your parents set rules about how much you can play? If you were a parent, would you set rules?

• The U.S. government already prohibits young people from drinking alcohol or smoking. Should governments create limits the way China did to prevent children and teenagers from playing video games for too many hours? Why or why not?

• If the government doesn’t set limits, should parents and families do so? Why or why not?

• Is there an age when a young person should be mature enough to make their own decisions about how much time they spend playing video games? If yes, what is that age, and why?

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Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.