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China to limit teenagers’ smartphone use to two hours a day
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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I think it's such a boomer-y perspective to treat phones as toys. For a lot of people, smartphones are their main computer. People do their homework, do research, learn languages, fill out forms, and lots of other productive activities.
Even communication is not frivolous. What if someone wants to talk to their father working in a factory in distant Guangdong for their birthday?
What counts as “education”? China recently has the chess world champion. Is studying opening chess moves “education”? I doubt it. Is reading video game websites in English to study English “education “? There are so many useful ways to let people flourish by following their passions.
You know that's sort of the opposite of how China operates, right? I mean, to be fair they have 1.4 BILLION people and a very centrally-planned authoritarian government that doesn't have much flexibility. When the Chinese government is doing their planning they'll often designate entire regions of the country like, "these folks will be textile workers" or "these folks will be farmers". The last thing they want is for any large number of people to "follow their passions" because it would completely screw up their plans!
I'm sure they expect--and hope--some useful deviants emerge from their centrally-planned education and economy but I'm positive they'd prefer it if at least 99.9% of the population just falls in line.
I am all for criticizing authoritarianism, but I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration (similar things were said of the supposedly “conformist” Japanese in the 80s and 90s). You don’t hear the same things said of the US, even though the US school system is one of the most segregated in the developed world. If you grow up in certain neighborhoods, often along racial lines, you are designated to be a poorly paid service worker, with no real option to follow your passions. Social mobility in China remains higher than in the US.
In any case, we’re mostly in agreement inasmuch as I’m obviously criticizing this bad authoritarian policy in China.
Haha, a lot of educational apps were banned in China already