South Korea To Shut Some Video Games Off For Six Hours Every Night
from the go-to-sleep dept
For quite some time, authorities in South Korea have contended that a lot of kids there are addicted to the internet. One of the more misguided steps take to try and "cure" these kids was to put them in a boot camp where they couldn't use computers, but apparently that effort failed. So, now, the government is mandating a six-hour nightly curfew (via Gizmodo) for 19 online role-playing games that account for 79 percent of the Korean online game market. Apparently the curfew will help "eradicate video game addiction", and will apply only to underage users. However, it's not clear how the government will ensure users are accurately representing their age. It'll be great that some kids will be prompted to get their sleep, but once again, it seems like the curfew will just treat a symptom, not the underlying problem that leads people to get unhealthily immersed in online games.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: internet addiction, south korea, video games
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What is this "unhealthy problem."
A friend of mine is concerned about his son. But this same boy plays hours of road hockey everyday. I fail to see the problem.
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The government is treating the problem as if it's online gaming, when the real problem is the obsessive behavior.
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And poor parenting, and an ever-shortening list of legal engaging experiences in the outdoors, and widespread social-anxiety disorder, counter-narcissistic revulsion, and on and on.
But yeah.. playing a game non-stop is absolutely behavior of the individual.
'tao' do you think the government should be involved in regulating stupid but non-criminal behavior?
After all, is not the best government the one that does not govern at all?
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Then you mix in a huge incentive to present yourself as older, and this bill is almost entirely useless. It will simply be annoying to a few people who weren't interested enough in a game to figure out a way around it, but those people weren't the ones with the problem.
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Reality Check
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For example, in many societies if a child engages in hours and hours of sports related activity, that is usually considered healthy and commended. Similarly, if a child spends all their time playing a musical instrument. But as soon as you put "online" into the equation, suddenly it's some evil, unhealthy activity that must be eradicated.
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Best comment I am going to read today! May I used that as my Facebook status?
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All I am saying is that video games are like crack.
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Everything in moderation, my friend, everything in moderation.
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Its quite dificult for us to comment on S korea due to how pervasive the internet is in their country, its easy to say its the parents responsability but this is the same country were 2 parents left their child to starve because they were "raising" a virtual child.
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Also, how many hours of tv do people watch? Zoned out like a zombie staring at the tv. At least games have multiplayer and you can still interact with people and keep your mind active.
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what comes around goes around(and around and around, etc)
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newspapers and movie theater both went through the same thing in their time. I know that play actors in the 1850s were considered "the devils children" (it was actually a pretty big scandal that Lincoln loved the theater so much). everything is considered evil by the previous generation. in my opinion, though, video games have gotten a really bad rap for a very long time. almost what 40 years? the tv and internet took less than a decade to become household words, but video games are still considered "evil"
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Wait...
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they're not treating it as some witchhunt, they're treating it like a public health crisis.
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hi there
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Video Games
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Video Games
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