China declares underage gaming ban effective, but report shows teenagers aren’t studying more. Here’s why.
Getting Chinese teenagers focused on studying and exercising seems to be an endless battle when there are so many entertaining things to do on screens.
More than a year after China imposed sweeping restrictions on video game time for minors, the country’s top gaming industry association has declared that the problem of “underage gaming addiction has been basically resolved.” Although the policy is described by officials as effective, it seems to fall short of actually steering teenagers towards what the government sees as a healthy and positive lifestyle.
The findings are part of a document titled “A progress report on the Chinese gaming industry’s protection of minors,” which was released yesterday by China’s Game Industry Group Committee (CGIGC), a government-run organization affiliated with the online game publishing regulator. According to the report, which CGIGC co-authored with Beijing-based research body Gamma Data (伽马数据), more than 75% of young gamers now play less than three hours a week. “Under the influence of the new regulations, minors’ gaming addiction has been basically resolved,” the body writes.
As another indicator of the policy’s success, the report shows that among families with young gamers, only around 15% of them reported unapproved in-game spending by the kids, “a significant drop from 2021,” writes the Committee.
The government’s screen time rules
In a move to shape the next generation of Chinese people, and keep them away from what the Party considers to be “bad influences” in their lives, Beijing introduced a set of regulations in August 2021, ordering gaming companies such as industry giants Tencent and Netease to ban underage users from playing on weekdays and allow them only an hour of play time between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Fridays, weekends and public holidays. To comply with the mandate, Chinese gaming companies implemented new policies such as requiring players to register and log in with their real names and identities, which allows the platforms to limit gaming time according to age.
To make sure the restrictions are enforced properly, some firms also developed new technologies and functions: Tencent, for example, has been using facial recognition to detect teenagers who try to use their parents’ devices or identities to circumvent the restrictions. These efforts have been fruitful: According to the report, the time spent by children on Tencent’s games only accounts for 0.7 percent of the total gaming time on its platforms right now.
The kids are still stuck on screens
However, it might be too soon for China to declare total victory over gaming addiction among minors. The report noted that although many parents have installed state-approved software on their children’s devices to prevent them from excessive gaming, a notable number of parents still make no efforts to manage their kids’ gaming time at home, with some of them even allowing their children to use their identification cards to register accounts and get around the restrictions.
Another important consideration is what teenagers are doing with their time instead of gaming. The report found that Chinese minors’ use of short-form video-sharing apps like Douyin and streaming services increased this year. For a question asking underage respondents what they like to do with the time saved from gaming, studying and participating in outdoor events take the fifth and seventh place among all the activities, trailing behind scrolling social media, texting friends, and watching Douyin videos.
Beijing has long worried about gaming addiction amongst the country’s youth. Gaming consoles like XBox and Nintendo were banned for around 14 years until 2014, and the new restrictions were an escalation of earlier limits set in 2019, which had limited play to 90 minutes on weekdays and three hours on weekends for children. Before the authorities rolled out the ban last summer, a state-affiliated publication published an article branding online gaming as “spiritual opium” and calling for further restrictions.
But there have been signs that the government is adopting a friendlier attitude towards gaming. In April, China approved the first batch of new video game licenses since July 2021, ending a months-long hiatus that put the world’s largest mobile gaming arena on edge. Last week, the regulators published licenses to 70 online games, including the first one for Tencent in 18 months.
