According to new regulations announced by the Chinese government on August 2, children and teenagers in the country will lose access to the Internet at night, as well as be subject to general limits on smartphone usage time, in the context of Internet "addiction" in children being a top concern of parents and society.
The new rules, which will come into effect on September 2 after a public consultation, will see all people under the age of 18 lose access to the Internet on their mobile devices between 10pm and 6am.
In addition, the Chinese government will also apply a tiered system to manage smartphone usage time for children, allowing a maximum of 40 minutes per day for children under 8 years old and 2 hours per day for 16 and 17 year olds.
Observers say the new regulations, proposed by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), are among the strictest in the world . However, parents can choose not to apply the rule to their children.
The new rules will “improve the positive role of the Internet, create a healthy network environment, prevent and reduce Internet addiction among children, and help them form good Internet usage habits,” the CAC said. The measures build on previous efforts to protect children and adolescents online, including “enriching age-appropriate content” and reducing “the influence of harmful information.”
In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced regulations for its domestic technology sector, partly due to concerns about the risks posed by digital technology to the country's youth. In 2021, China introduced restrictions on children's gaming time to combat "addiction" to electronic devices and suspended the approval process for new video games for nine months.
Following the CAC announcement, shares of many leading Chinese Internet companies also fell in the trading session on August 2, with Tencent’s shares listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (China) falling by 3%. Meanwhile, mainland China’s largest online search engine, Baidu, also saw its shares fall 3.75% on the Hong Kong exchange.
Hoang Chau (Vietnam News Agency)
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