The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has put forth a proposal aimed at restricting smartphone usage among individuals under the age of 18. This move represents the Chinese regulators’ latest effort to control the internet usage of young people.
According to the proposed law, all smartphones would be required to have a special “minor mode,” which would restrict children’s access to the internet. China has heavily invested in digital surveillance and already has comprehensive laws in place to monitor and regulate internet access. Last year, China was ranked the world’s worst country for digital freedom for the eighth consecutive year by Freedom House.
The new rules would effectively prohibit smartphone usage for children between 10 pm and 6 am. Additionally, screen time would be limited based on different age brackets. Children under the age of 8 would be allowed only 40 minutes of screen time per day, those between 8 and 16 years old would be limited to one hour, and teenagers between 16 and 18 years old would have a two-hour limit.
The CAC has clarified that there will be exceptions for educational and emergency services. Before the proposal becomes law, it will undergo a public consultation process and be voted on by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Let’s take a look at how young people in China use the internet, by the numbers:
93%: The percentage of Chinese minors who were online as of 2019. By comparison, 97% of American teenagers use the internet.
24 million: The estimated number of children in China with a clinical internet addiction.
3 hours: The weekly time limit imposed on Chinese children for playing video games.
The CAC’s proposal has had an impact on Chinese tech companies’ stock prices. Following the news, Alibaba’s stock fell by 5%, while NetEase’s dropped by 3% at 2:30 pm in New York. Tencent and Baidu also experienced declines, with both falling by 4%.
This is not the first time that the Chinese government has shown hostility towards technology targeted at young people. In 2021, the CCP imposed some of the world’s strictest limits on video game use for minors, including strict time restrictions on online gaming, to address what they perceive as a growing internet addiction issue.
These limits also led to a ban on the release of new video game titles until mid-2022, resulting in a decline in Chinese video game sales for the first time. It is estimated that the video game ban cost China’s major tech companies over $1 trillion in losses. With Huawei being one of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers, the impact of the CAC’s latest proposal on China’s struggling tech industry remains to be seen.