South Korea Blocks Late-Night Online Gaming for Adolescents

PolygamousRanchKid writes "In its effort to curb game addiction among adolescents, South Korea pulled the plug this weekend on young gamers after midnight by blocking access to game websites, putting a hotly debated law into practice. The new system called the 'shutdown law,' also referred to as the 'Cinderella law,' blocks those under the age of 16 from accessing gaming websites after midnight and has fueled heated anger among younger gamers and avid game fans. Critics point out that many teenagers hold gaming accounts created with their parent's personal information, easily providing them with an alternative log-in option. 'You can say someone is an alcoholic if they drink more than three bottles (of liquor) a day, but you can't call them alcoholic because they drink after midnight. It's the same with gaming,' Lee Byung-chan, the lawyer who filed the petition on behalf of parents and a young gamer said. 'From the parents' point of view, it violates their right to educate their children,' Lee added. It is for the parents to decide what time they want to allow their children to play games or not, not for the government to exclude them from that process, the argument goes."

Comments

Another idea

[jhoegl]

How about after school programs?
Having people exert themselves mentally or physically actually does make them tired. Games dont do either.

Re:Another idea

[sahonen]

If you don't think playing games is mentally exerting, you're not playing the right games. Starcraft in particular is one of the most popular games in South Korea, and is frequently compared to chess.

Re:Another idea

[Ukab the Great]

Pot circles, keggers, and wild make-out parties are excellent after-school activities for healthy teenagers. Perhaps they could get school district funding.

Re:Another idea

[englishknnigits]

Yes, thinking clearly and strategically under pressure has no practical applications. Problem solving skills and thinking critically are also useless. Learning how to smash into someone, hit a round object with a stick, use steroids, and training to the point of causing life long injuries for a 0.001% chance of fame/fortune are much more useful skills. If you actually think about it, pretty much all activities we indulge in are ultimately useless aside from the enjoyment/fulfillment we get from them. Starcraft IS an extracurricular activity that many people get enjoyment/fulfillment from.

Re:Another idea

[Hadlock]

Sports beyond football have been known to exist - baseball, tennis, swimming etc. If you want to expand beyond that, there's marching band, dance, ballet, cheerleading etc which require more finesse and coordination, but less brute strength. The same skills you list to be learned from SC can be learned on the speech or debate team at any school, and are more directly transferable to jobs. I don't doubt people enjoy SC (otherwise Blizzard may not have existed today) but I have reservations about how well being a top notch SC player translates in to being a successful person in meatspace. Many speech/debate students at the national level end up as successful law students based on the skills they learned through debate.

Re:Another idea

[Anonymous Coward]

'socialization' isn't the only thing to vie for in life. it's a component, not the be-all-end-all. also, many of these kids would be ridiculed if they tried out for athletic teams.

That attitude is self-defeating. Any kid can learn a sport well enough to compete if they try. With rare exceptions, high school sports really aren't all that competitive, and if your school does have a top tier team in one sport, you can just aim for another. It's healthy, it builds self-confidence, and it preps you for later in life when you meet new people who might want to do a pickup game of basketball or start a company softball team.

Our culture likes to push this idea that if you're smart you must be an unathletic weakling. It's self-fulfilling. We tell kids that if they're smart, they'd just humiliate themselves by trying out for a team. They believe it, don't try out, and become weak for lack of exercise.

Re:Another idea

[pandronic]

How about everyone does what they enjoy in their time? Why does the state or you for that matter think you know what's best for someone else?

Re:Another idea

[war4peace]

Your comment raises another interesting question: when does someone cease to be a child? At 21, when they are allowed to drink alcohol? At 18, like in Europe? At 16, when they are allowed to drive a car? At 14, when they get their ID card (at least here in RO)? Or are these all, um, I don't know, standard ages that don't really reflect anything?
I remember being more mature at 14 than most of my school mates; I was interested in the same things and activities people aged 20-24 were usually performing (except sex, that was still blurry to me, of course). I was rather lonely at school because of that. Even now, in my low 30s, I would rather spend time with people aged 40+ because they better fit my areas of interest and I have more productive discussions with them.
So please... I was perfectly able to function as an adult at 16. On the other hand, some people can't properly function as adults even after reaching 40.
It's down to the human being itself; so when a government applies a blanket law like this I call bullshit.
"Everyone under age of 16 shouldn't play games after midnight" - probably holds true up to some extent. But actually forbidding it - that's dangerously close to dictatorship.

Re:Another idea

[tixxit]

Then don't try out for an athletic team. I used to skateboard after school (it helped we had a skatepark 100m from our school). You can also join houseleague teams or just do your own thing with a friend (eg. tennis). Even if you do try out, I usually find there is a big difference between perception and reality when you fear you may humiliate yourself. I had a friend decide to try out for the school's rugby team on a whim (he was a "weak" nerd type). Turns out he made a great hooker and had a great time on the team that year and made lots of new friends. Regardless, you don't have to be the best at something, or even good at it, to enjoy doing it. Look at all the hoards of bad golfers out there (including me) for proof.

Re:Military Service

[sahonen]

Put away the pitchfork, he was talking about the mandatory military service in South Korea, he was not expressing the opinion that military service should be mandatory.

Games get a higher priority over studies then?

[mehrotra.akash]

2 scenarios
A) I can do homework and studies after midnight, but no games, then I am going to game till midnight and study after that
but if the restriction wasnt there,
B) I would finish off studies first and game after that for whatever amount of time I want
in A, I'm playing with a fresh mind, and studying with a tired mind
In B its the reverse
Why would the govt. want students to study with a tired mind?