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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."
How about after school programs?
Having people exert themselves mentally or physically actually does make them tired. Games dont do either.
I for one am glad there is no such thing as a single player game you can get addicted too. *goes back to playing skyrim*
Honestly, this will have an even greater effect than people are imagining at the moment. All males must service mandatory military service after high school, so they will probably have to wait a while longer to play games after midnight than people are thinking. This is all just a conspiracy by older people to make younger people not have any fun.
Finally, professional Starcraft players from other countries finally have a chance!
(based on the single "Barcraft" I've been to, iirc the semifinals were all South Koreans)
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?
The law is almost certainly because the Starcraft, Wow, CoD etc... players are showing up for school each day looking like they're dead on their feet. Then on top of that, a huge number of guys staying up to 4am on a school day watching "The Pro's Play".
In the west we simply assume that the kids who do that will one day make an excellent addition to the staff at McDonalds... After all, if their parents are stupid enough to let their kids stay up late like that on school nights, then the kids are most likely equally worthless... so screw them. Korea on the other hand appears to think that these kids shouldn't be showing up looking dead to school each day, getting poor grades and taking away from the students who will be more motivated.
Now... I on the other hand stayed up until 4am on school days programming and designing electronics which made me utterly worthless in school each day... if I deigned to present myself there at all. I was more interested in learning than attending school (though I did read all the text books cover to cover... hence learning). I'm not quite sure that becoming a better Starcraft player counts as educational though.
But it seems pretty obvious to me that we should start treating addictions, especially "gaming addiction" as a symptom instead of a disease. In fact, symptom may be too strong of a word--coping mechanism might be more suitable. I'm not going to tell you that kids can't stay up all night, neglect their schoolwork, and seriously harm their academic futures by way of "gaming addiction"--but we really ought to be a lot more concerned with figuring out why certain kids feel like they need that sort of escapism in their life rather than just slapping some sort of one-size fits all band-aid on the situation and then patting ourselves on our collective backs.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that "gaming is treatment" and therefore it shouldn't be restricted. To the contrary, I understand that it may be necessary to limit a child's access to video games in order to prevent them from entering a cycle of excessive gaming --> Failure --> depression --> more gaming ---> more failure --> etc. I'm just saying each child's situation and problems are completely different, and that no singular solution is going to fix every kid, and for some, something like this might do more harm than good. I have no doubt in my mind that for some kids, video games are the thin line between "coping on a day to day basis" and "suicidal tendencies". We may be seeing policies like this in China and Korea first, but many western countries aren't too far behind unless there's a sudden outbreak of common sense.