Screen addiction in kids - should we be looking to China for the answer?

I’m having lots of conversations at the moment with parents about screentime. Many of them seem to have given up on the time limit rules they set when they first gave their child their own device.

With an exhausted shrug they tell me that it’s just too hard to manage their children’s tantrums and poor behaviour when they are without their devices. These same parents are also complaining that their children have become hunched zombies, endlessly scrolling through more and more content. Rather than ride around on their bikes together, teenagers are now silently scrolling in groups but on their own device, occasionally sharing with their peers something interesting that they find online. 

Social media is designed to be addictive, If so many adults can’t resist the temptation to check one more platform, how are our teenagers with their immature brains ever going to stand a chance?

I’ve been following China and their strategies to help with teenage screen addition for a while and while their approaches are drastic they do seem to be working.

• Two years ago the country instituted a strict limit of 3 hours per week for children playing video games. One year after the gaming restrictions a report showed that 77% of Chinese youth gamers reduced the amount of time they play each week as a direct result of the new regulations.

China also forced the Chinese equivalent of TikTok (called Douyin) to introduce in-app parental controls, banned underage (13 and younger) users from appearing in any livestreams, released a teenager mode which only shows educational content and only allowed teenagers to access the platform for 40 minutes per day with access only between 6am and 10pm.

Douyin also has a feature to help adults with a screen hijack when it detects too much use with a short video encouraging you to put your phone down that you must watch before you can contine scrolling.

Last week Beijing went one step further with a strict set of regulations around how children use all apps with the goal of keeping them safe from inappropriate content and screen addiction.

The cross platform, cross-device program is led by the government and its rules include:

Children under the age of eight can only use smart devices for 40 minutes per day and only to access educational content relevant to their age.

At age 8 and above the children are allowed 60 minutes of screen time and any entertain content that they view will have been approved to be providing positive guidance.

While we all worry about child safety, and many parents have little idea of what their children are actually getting up to on the internet, it seems China has been bold in their decision making around what they believe is best for children.

Research in this space is still limited, however this health advisory on social media in adolescence is a great toolkit to work from for anyone wanting some tips on how to navigate the internet with their children.

The question now is what are those of us outside of China going to do to help support our young people in this technology filled world?

While I'm a big believer in parents making the right choices for their own children, I'm also aware that many parents have no idea about what their children are doing or accessing online and the harm that could come from it.