China's Gaming Curfew - Tencent main enforcement

You know, this announcement from the Chinese government makes me laugh, mostly because it draws a striking resemblance to something I experienced a long time ago as a kid in the UK.

Back when the first call of duty on 3rd gen consoles was coming out, I forget which one, there was a clear divide of who had it or not with kids. There was the group whose parents bought it for them, and the group who couldn't convince their parents to buy them an 18 rated game. (And of course the group who didn't give two shits about a lackluster FPS and laughed, but we were the minority lmao.)

The same thing will happen in China. There will be the group who does everything under their parents name and avoids any restriction, and the group that can't convince their parents to let them do so.

I would decry China for being authoritarian, but I would be beating a dead horse on the highest degree so let's just leave leave it implied.

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Boem wrote:

I tend to look at history for hints when it comes to things like this.

This is al very much alike the printing press revolution or the introduction of television.

Social media and computers follow the same pattern(exponential increase of available information) but the individual pattern also persists in relation to the older revolutions.

That is to say, the medium being utilized is irrelevant, what is relevant is the individuals connection and usage of the medium.

People were also convinced television would make people stupid and yet now we have story epochs with complexity that rival old epics produced on a regular basis.
It's all about how you utilize the medium and i think that depends entirely on the person and the examples he is given.

You can watch some dating show or a documentary, arguably both can have valuable lessons for certain people.
Similarly i think its perfectly fine for certain people to play a lot of hours gaming if it expands their skillsets.

And thats exactly why "general planning" or "generalized strategy's" dont function. They don't recognize the positive potential in individual cases and use a bulldozer approach throwing a bunch of people under the bus.

Peace,

-Boem-

Then how do you reconcile requirements for public education in most civilized, 1st world countries? (In the US this is required by law) Is this not "planning?"

If we completely take out the medium/distraction/issue, and instead focus on the ultimate premise, which is basically the following: How do you best ensure that a 6yr old, over the next 12 years, is best equipped to be a contributing member of society when they become adults.

Working backwards from there, I would assume that would include, in the most basic sense, education, health care, environmental safety. In short are they in a safe place/home, do they have access to healthcare and nutrition, and will they have educational opportunities on par with society norms?

If anything directly interferes with this "plan", having corrective action in place makes sense. Whether it's the welfare system, or child protective services, ect..

I suppose the issue, is whether or not we would consider video games (or electronic diversion in general) harmful to youth development. I would argue that this is certainly plausible enough to at least consider it as a potential concern.

China has, as they always do, over-reacted to the extreme, forming conclusions that just dont seem to have solid evidence. However I dont think this invalidates the general premise, and concern, over the effects the digital age is having on the younger generation.

Doesn't the education system prove my point?

It's a generalized system that leaves a lot of children behind and has a lot of issues nowadays, from poor results to the enigma of what we have to teach children today in order to succeed twenty years from now with the rapidly changing workfield.

I left school at the age of thirteen, illegaly. Never had the state come after me and when i see my sister who has a university degree and the amount of knowledge i have "over" her im always baffled at the failure we call our education system.
Not to mention how much distress she experiences when put out of her comfort zones.
That's not a slight on her, i love her a lot, just an example of the system not being all that solid. She does her job briliantly, but as far as general knowledge and aplication goes of new information goes she isn't fluid.

When it comes to evaluating gaming, studies have been done already on this topic and it doesnt negatively impact agression(which was an initial hypothesis ten years back) or focus.

If i remember correctly your post had a video about those two boys right?
Where one of them is distracted more easily and they try to correlate this to gaming by inference.
Ignoring the fact completely his brother has no interest in gaming and is not distracted on the other task.(which can be a temperament variable, high action vs low action stimulus)

If people really want to address something that is going to bite us in the ass, then they should address social media and pre-teen girls.
Study's are showing startling results of pre-teen girls exposed to social media, heightened tension and stress, more self-harm and more suicide attempts and the spike is directly correlated with the introduction of smart-phones to children.

I make the distinction between genders here because boys have no issue with it and as one might have guessed already, they use the platforms to game with friends which has no negative effects long term if they dont fall into addiction patterns or simply grow out of it.

And girls are much more socially apt and influenced and rate a lot higher in neurotic behavior, which social media triggers. Constantly comparing yourself with the best, anorexia and other disorders to compete, being downvoted or bullied online without a moments rest since you "cant shut it off" unlike before when you could go home from school and have respite from the bullies etc

All in all, is education central planning? Yes. Does it work? Medium at best would be my opinion, specially given how the current system of parroting the teachers operate.

I think if we would compare gaming with education in relation to china my analogy would be "you can game but have to choose out of these X games to spend your time on", pushing some people out of the boat but still providing an axis of freedom for most.

And china would be the "play what you want for one hour".(though arguably, not what they want since they are already getting censored pre-choice so they only have the illusion of full choice)

Peace,

-Boem-

Of course there are exceptions to the rule. Genius level or high intelligence children don't benefit from static education levels, but as a whole I think the system is beneficial.

I dont want to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me you think public education, isnt effective, and shouldnt be required. It's just not thinking I agree with when we are thinking in terms of millions of individuals.

That being said, detrimental effects of technology is still widely an unknown. China's Government while distasteful for sure, certainly has it's own interests in mind.

I dont know if all this screen time is bad from a development or social point of view in the long term, but then again neither does anyone else on the other side that it isnt significant. Is suppose that's what makes things interesting (even if you remove the Chinese angle)

I don't think its inneffective.

I simply think it teaches a very rudimentary skill to people, how to parrot another person.

It's only in higher education that you suddenly see a shift to personal input and by that time most people have learned to parrot so they fall into a depression or excesive stress.

I shouldn't have to point this out in this forum where we constantly see people parroting what they heard a talking head say and when you ask them for their personal input they hit a brick wall or end up twisting in a divergent manouvre.

And i don't disagree, as a general model it has its function, but its obvious that it leaves out the tail-ends of the distribution.
So both the brightest and dimmest are set back, so as far as society contribution goes, slowing down the progress of your brightest can be costly in the long run.

I would recommend jonathan haidts lectures if you want to see some data stats on social media in relation to pre-teen girls, he's a good lecturer and pleasant to listen to.

If my recollection is correct we already see biological changes in the current generation were their thumb is more dexterous and developed.(apm in comparison with older generations)
And an inability to correctly read facial expressions, leading to higher tension in public environments.(chat aps and cellphone usage instead of face to face etc)

I don't really disagree that poor usage can lead to disastrous effects, but that axiom goes for everything in life.

For example twitter could be designed differently so that it doesn't target the most negative and rudimentary responses from people.
But since it's driven by a business model that relies on this we get the current twitter.

It's like the old train analogy, trains can be used to transport people from point A to point B or from point A to gullag B.

The motivation to push the technology is at fault, not the technology in itself because that just "is" and can be utilized in whichever way we seek to implement it.

I think that goes back to my earlier point, games for example have been shown to be good for social skills and development when it comes to introvert people so thats a boon, but i have no doubt they are disastrous for people with addictive tendency's. So are they bad or good with those two opposite pools in mind? They are neither and both depending on the context of evaluation.

Peace,

-Boem-

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DarthSki44 wrote:

First off, there are no studies that are complete on nearly any scientific topic regarding human understanding.

Right. So let's talk. Nothing irks me more than "settled science" and "debating facts" rhetoric. It's an appeal to authority in an attempt to shut down conversation; it's a bad habit.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

That being said, all I referenced was that chemical interactions in the body (internal or external), change body chemistry, brain function, receptors, and create dependency on the body. There is no debate on this topic(that I'm aware of). This is 100% independent of any sort of external physiological factors. You can in fact, be addicted to chemicals regardless of your mental state. This is our current understanding.

It is the "current understanding", but it's an inaccurate one that has led to a lot of really bad legislation. Drugs turning people into addicts is literally putting the cart before the horse. I also object softly to the bolded section because mental states are physical states, not metaphysical ones.

The vast majority of what we classify as addiction is a self-medication impulse gone awry, not unlike a fever reaction that kills more healthy tissue than it tried to save. This is at least partially genetic, and is reproduced in non-sapient creatures.

A lot of the studies of "drugs forcing people to be physically addicted" are complete bunk. They didn't control for hardly anything and the results are often not reproducible; most reduce to "people use drugs (due to high daily stress), and then they use more drugs (due to continued high daily stress)".

Focusing on the medicine that people are self-medicating with is absolutely treating a symptom, not the disease. There is such a thing as tolerance and physical dependency, but you can also reproduce such things without addiction being present, right? You can imagine a patient needing increasingly higher doses of medicine to combat a disease through no choice of their own.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

If from a societal point of view, public education, or even education in general, of the population at large is vitally important, why wouldn't we take effort to ensure this is as effective as possible?

What if it leads to a spike in suicides? What if it leads to a spike in disaffection and distrust, thereby reducing the number of people that care about education or helping their community? What if it leads to an increase in paper education but a decrease in innovation?

China has made their decision, sure, and you can kinda follow the method by which they arrived at it. But it's not a measured decision, or a scientific one. It thinks it has its own interests in mind, but so did everyone who ever fucked up so I don't really give that much weight.

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My main comment was that performing this experiment on an entire country, overnight, by fiat... is knee-jerky and historically likely to result in a change for the worse. China of course is rather known for these things.

And it looks like we're in agreement there.

I would say that the major inversion is that the highest level of government is making such arbitrary decisions over children's lives -- it should be the parent's decision first, then local community, then wider community/the state at large. But that's another giant topic. :D

I'm conflicted. I'm a libertarian so don't believe in almost any government regs except to protect life, property and liberty... At same time Gaming is pretty much a waste of time which most people arnt served by. Like there was this one dude, homeless, complaining about MTX prices. I'm like... WTF are you gaming for if you cant even afford rent get a job and get your shit straight first before indulging in escapism that is gaming. Perhaps China doesnt want a bunch of shiftless young like we have - Anyways China is building a super power after all and can't afford a bunch of Bernie Bros. We are one and can indulge.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I'm conflicted. I'm a libertarian so don't believe in almost any government regs except to protect life, property and liberty... At same time Gaming is pretty much a waste of time which most people arnt served by. Like there was this one dude, homeless, complaining about MTX prices. I'm like... WTF are you gaming for if you cant even afford rent get a job and get your shit straight first before indulging in escapism that is gaming. Perhaps China doesnt want a bunch of shiftless young like we have - Anyways China is building a super power after all and can't afford a bunch of Bernie Bros. We are one and can indulge.

The libertarian idea is to let the parents do their task.
Usually in the knowledge that nobody has the answer and that we are all "winging it as we go".

And to keep the society as flexible and loose as possible when it comes to freedom. And because of that, the potentially "fucked up" kid can later in live utilize that freedom to correct himself and mature to "something he can defend".

That puts equal burden on all children to come and that have come before us.
Everybody has a fucked up tale or two about their parents.

Peace,

-Boem-