📲 Why is China limiting children's screentime?

Last year, China became the first country in the world to implement limits on how much time children can spend using smartphones & computers.

These rules include:

• a 40-minute daily screentime cap for children under 8 years old

• a two-hour screentime cap for teenagers

• a three-hour weekly cap on video games for under-18s

China isn’t the only country concerned with children spending too much time online.

More than 60 countries worldwide have banned children from using smartphones in school, as have a growing number of U.S. states. (see below)

Policymakers & parents worldwide are concerned about excessive smartphone use among kids.

China has gone further than other nations by imposing strict limits on screentime for all Chinese children.

The growing backlash against smartphone use among children leads us to ask:

Is digital technology harming the physical & mental health of children? 

The widespread adoption of mobile devices over the last 20 years has made this a pressing question for governments & families worldwide.

The numbers speak for themselves:

• Over 67% of the world's population now owns a smartphone.

• The average person now spends over 4 hours per day on their smartphone.

• In countries like Brazil and Indonesia, it's closer to 6 hours.

Excessive screentime can hurt children in different ways:

• sedentary sitting in front of a phone or computer screen harms their physical health by keeping them from moving & exercising

• the actual content they consume — and the excessive time spent consuming that content — may negatively affect their mental health

It also hurts them indirectly by limiting the amount of time they spend hanging out with friends:

Why are experts concerned?

Researchers have linked excessive screentime among children to:

• Attention fragmentation

• Sleep disruption

• Impaired social skills

However, the most significant concerns relate to children’s mental health.

57% of girls and 29% of boys in American high schools reported symptoms of depression in 2021 — a significant increase from 2011.

Even worse, 30% of American girls and 14% of boys reported thoughts of suicide that year.

For girls, this marked a 60% increase over the last 10 years. 

American social psychologist Johnathan Haidt has linked mental health problems among teenagers to the impact of mobile technology on children. 

Haidt calls this the “great rewiring of childhood,” and he argues that:

China’s regulations

Chinese authorities are especially concerned about mobile games, which they have called “spiritual opium.”

The Chinese government began by regulating kids’ access to video games, but these policies have expanded to include smartphone use more generally.

Here’s a timeline of China’s efforts to limit excessive screentime among children:

• Early 2010s: Chinese authorities started rolling out voluntary guidelines targeting the mobile gaming industry.

• 2019: China introduced restrictions limiting online gaming for minors to 90 minutes on weekdays.

• 2021: These rules became even stricter with the current three-hour weekly limit.

• 2023: China’s cyberspace authority proposed a draft proposal requiring a “Minor Mode” that limits screentime depending on a child’s age.

How does China enforce the screentime ban?

At the core of China’s regulations is a comprehensive system that combines technical & legal controls to limit minors' access to online entertainment:

• Gaming companies must connect to a central authentication system. Players must verify their identity using official ID numbers.

• Facial recognition is used to prevent minors from sidestepping the regulations by using their parents' accounts.

Companies receive hefty fines for failing to comply with the regulations.

What should we do about it?

Pretty much everyone agrees: kids are spending too much time on their phones.

When I talk to my students at Miami-Dade College about these topics, they tell me how excessive screentime affects them & their siblings.

And survey data backs up the claim that teens want to spend less time on their phones.

But what can be done about it?

China’s regulations have prompted other countries to reconsider questions about the correct relationship between:

• digital rights

• parental authority

• government oversight

In Western countries, maintaining children’s digital well-being is mainly viewed as a parental responsibility.

However, many parents feel powerless because it’s so easy for their kids to access mobile technology.

China’s shift from voluntary guidelines to strict regulations marks a change in how societies might approach digital well-being in the future.

The impact of China’s screentime regulations may only become clear after the policies have been in place for years.

Those outcomes will determine whether other countries look to China's policy experiment as a possible blueprint — or a warning — about government intervention in digital consumption.

ART OF THE DAY

Piano by Candlelight by Otto Pippel. 1941.