by Helen Coster (Reuters) – Raleigh Smith Duttweiler was folding laundry at her home in Ohio while her children played the Minecraft game upstairs when she heard a radio report about new rules in China banning children and teens under age. 18 years of playing video games for more than three hours a week. “Oh, here’s an idea,” thought Duttweiler, who works in public relations at a nonprofit organization. “My American instinct tells me: this is a kind of restriction of rights and no one has the right to say what to do inside our homes.” “On the other hand, it’s not very good for kids to play as much as even my kids play. And I do believe that it would be much easier to turn off the game if it didn’t mean an argument with the mother, but something along the lines of “it was the police who sent it”. For Duttweiler and for many families outside China, news of this strict measure of social intervention in the country – which the Chinese government says was needed to curb a growing addiction to what has been described as “spiritual opium” – highlights a challenge to regulate the use of video games within their own homes, especially during the pandemic. The Chinese regulatory agency said the new rules were a response to growing concerns that games could affect children’s physical and mental health, a fear shared by parents and experts in the United States and elsewhere. Paul Morgan, a father of two teenagers and a Penn State University professor who researches the use of electronic devices, sees flaws in the ban while acknowledging the challenge of controlling children’s screen time. “Electronic devices are ubiquitous,” Morgan said. “It’s time to get the kids away from them.” (Reporting by Helen Coster in New York) See too + Until 2019, there were more people in prisons than on the Brazilian stock exchange + Geisy complains about social media censorship: “Instagram is chasing me” [+ Aloe gel in the drink: see the benefits] [+ Nicole Bahls had already been warned about her ex-husband’s infidelity] [+ Lemon-squeezing trick becomes a craze on social media] [+ Chef playmate creates aphrodisiac recipe for Orgasm Day] [+ Mercedes-Benz Sprinter wins motorhome version] [+ Anorexia, an eating disorder that can lead to death] [+ US agency warns: never wash raw chicken meat] [+ Yasmin Brunet breaks the silence] [+ Shark is captured in MA with the remains of youngsters missing in the stomach] !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0?; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘2641197072803735’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
