Why does China want kids to spend less time on their phones?

China has issued a draft guideline aimed at regulating children's phone time for "anti-addiction" purposes. Some critics, however, see it as a move to limit access to information for the country's tech savvy generation.

The regulation, set to enter the legal process on September 2 after being open for public comment, stipulates that mobile devices and apps include a built-in "minor mode" that restricts daily screen time to a maximum of two hours.

The time limit will decrease based on the user's age, with usage restricted to 40 minutes per day for those younger than 8. Additionally, those under 18 cannot use their mobile gadgets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. within this mode.

Parents will be able to decide whether to adopt the restrictions and extend the time limits.

The draft rules, released by the Cyberspace Administration of China, also called for "content security," meaning information online should consist of "socialist values" which help children cultivate "good morality."

China's top internet regulator maintains the new requirements are intended to protect minors from accessing information identified as illegal or harmful to their physical and mental well-being.

Chinese parents welcome the move

Many parents have welcomed the government proposal.

"I think this proposal is really good," Kong Lingman, a parent and auditor working in Shanghai, told DW. "Minors spending too much time on phones can chip away at quality family time."

Supporters took to Chinese social media platform Weibo, leaving positive comments like "Well done" under various government posts about the announcement. But the proposal isn't without criticism.

"The result of wanting to control everything is that nothing ends up being controlled well," one user commented, garnering hundreds of likes under a post from the Weibo account of China's state media, People's Daily.

Entertainment and national security 

The proposal follows a series of measures implemented to bolster China's cyberspace governance. It began with a 2019 limit on video game playing time for those under 18, referred to as the "youth mode."

Initially, the instruction allowed for 90 minutes of online gaming per day on weekdays. But in 2021, a more stringent update limited Chinese teenagers to one hour of video game playing on Fridays, weekends and public holidays.

Video and livestreaming apps were also instructed to follow "an anti-addiction system" that required all users to register with real names and government-issued identification documents.

"This sequence of policies indeed follows a specific pattern," Tai Yu-Hui, an associate professor of communication and technology at Taiwan's National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University, told DW.

She said China is aiming to "uphold the concept of national security" by focusing on three areas: the internet, entertainment and youth.

A report released on Monday by the China Internet Network Information Center revealed that the country's internet penetration rate has exceeded 76% as of June 2023.

With an expanding internet user base, social media videos and mobile gaming may be perceived as capitalistic forms of entertainment activities —a distraction from government propaganda.

Tai told DW that since President Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago, "there has been a trend of integrating the political ideology into day-to-day entertaining content."

In March, a white paper issued by China's State Council Information Office outlined a clear goal to ensure "the internet develops within the confines of the law."

Another blow for tech firms

Since parents will have the final say in whether to adopt the rules, researchers said it's yet to be seen what impact this restriction may have on children.

But immediate impacts of the proposal have already been felt by Chinese tech firms. On the day the guidelines were published, shares in some of the country's internet giants sharply dropped during afternoon trading in Hong Kong.

These companies included Weibo, video streaming app Bilibili, the short video sharing app Kuaishou, and Tencent, which operates popular messaging platform WeChat.

Around two years ago, when Chinese authorities tightened the rules for the "youth mode," several apps already implemented measures to adhere to the official guidelines.

For instance, Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, implemented at the time a "teenage mode," which restricted kids under 14 to 40 minutes of daily usage on the short-video platform.

Now the upgraded restrictions are likely to further push tech companies to revise their user settings to avoid violating the guidelines.

Tai said it's another setback for the industry, as a prolonged regulatory crackdown on China's tech companies recently appeared to be coming to an end.

Since the draft only addresses illegal and mentally harmful information without any specific definitions, tech firms could just "resort to self-censorship to avoid crossing any red lines," she concluded.

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum