It's kinda impressive that the CCP can make decisions that affect 1B+ humans like this, overnight. I hope it's the right thing to do, for the kids' sake.
For an online game or a microtx based semi single player game, you want the player not to play, but to pay, over and over. That means that engineering addiction that leads to nothing but payment and compulsion is very profitable.
Offline games can definitely be very addicting and engaging. But ime those that are are because you're trying very hard to do something difficult, or because you're exploring, or because you're creating, all of which are ways in which video games can plausibly be helpful. And you will eventually get bored or move on to another game, which will give you time and pause to reconsider what you're doing.
Meanwhile you could be grinding an online video game doing menial tasks and buying microtransactions without ever having an end goal in mind and without being creative, for over a decade, every day.
So I think they're very different.
I feel reminded of the current apple issue.
Are people really that ready to accept dictate over their and their kids behaviour in the name of moral and health? Isn't "time spent online" miles away from what the government should be allowed to regulate in your life?
Videogames are extraordinarily addictive. They should absolutely be limited for kids.
For anyone who can think for themselves it is, but the CCP has crippled its population's ability to think independently with their constant, forced propaganda. This brainwashing is a form of violence against its people and I hope they rise up someday, but I don't know how that could happen.
---
A high level official from China's propaganda department visits the CNN, and asks to learn the state of the art in propaganda.
Bemused, CNN receptionist replies: we are living in a free country, there are no propaganda here.
CCP official: That's exactly what I'm trying to learn!
If the CCP decided to ban smoking, it would be a violation of people's rights. But it would also be a net benefit to almost everyone, and to society (health care costs would go down). That kind of authoritarianism is a LOT easier to stomach than, say, putting the Uygars into concentration camps. At least to me. (Singapore is an example of what I would call a mostly-benevolent authoritarian regime, for example.)
I think you are conflating “banning” with “convincing people to stop”; these are not the same. The PRC has banned lots of things without actually stopping them, and lots of countries have banned lots of addictive drugs without stopping their use, and with a whole lot of social harms resulting from the attempts to enforce the bans.
> health care costs would go down
Health care outcomes would no doubt improve if smoking was reduced by a ban, but healthcare costs would probably go up. IIRC, most studies have shown that reducing smoking increases lifetime healthcare costs (because, simplifying, people spend more time dealing with treatable problems instead of dead from incurable lung cancer.)
> Are people really that ready to accept dictate over their and their kids behaviour in the name of moral and health?
To be clear, most commentators here are probably from outside China. There isn't anything anyone commentating here can do about this. So all we can really commentate is on the outcomes and what it might mean.
1. Online games are easier to restrict. Centralized servers, corporations with addresses and bank accounts, &c
2. Online games are a political threat. The Chinese government worries not just about "political" organizing, but about any movement or activity that gets people in the habit of collective action and mass communication.
Social circles are established around online gaming; my teenager feels like he's letting his friends down if he doesn't spend enough time with 'The Clan'. His 'membership' with the group is at risk if he doesn't contribute his time.
It's made life somewhat difficult as a parent, to say the least.
Social circles are established around a common interest. Most people have to have some shared interest in order to be friends. I don't know how your son would socialize if he didn't have something in common with his social milieu. If your son was born at an earlier time, he would have to contend with the demonization of skateboarding, calling your friends over the landline, D&D, rock& roll, dance halls, chess, cafes, channel surfing, and any other thing "geeks", "hooligans", "layabouts", and other so-called non-conformists enjoyed when these hobbies were deemed the social malaise of their day. I can't speak for your circumstances in particular, but this argument of the "wrong" social circles enjoying the "wrong" hobbies strikes me as the kind of pearl-clutching I thought would have died with those farcical accusations of Harry Potter promoting witchcraft and covens back in the early 2000s.
That said, a pattern is a pattern until it isn't, and I think it's fair to ask what criteria you'd use to evaluate the cost/benefit of some activity on a cohort of individuals that lack a fully developed frontal lobe.
Some questions going through my mind as I've witnessed my children during quarantine:
1. Does the activity negatively impact the individuals ability to satisfy other obligations (academic, fiscal, personal-care, etc)?
2. Does the activity require only a shared interest, or is active participation required? if the latter, what's the time demand of the participation?
3. If the individual ceases the activity, will they maintain relationships with the individuals they participated with?
4. Can proficiency in the activity translate to other endeavors?
5. does the idea of taking a break from the activity cause anxiety or stress?
I let my kids play the games because I want them to have some autonomy, but online games in particular result in greater negative answers for these questions than other activities (including offline games).
Curious about your observations... do you find there's no difference between online vs. offline?