With the rapid development of technology, online games have become a part of modern life, especially among young people.
The "5th National Survey Report on the Internet Usage of Minors" shows that the number of underage netizens in my country will reach 193 million in 2023, and the proportion of underage netizens who often play games online is 67.8%, an increase of 5.5% from 2021 (62.3%) percentage point.
The prevention of game addiction among minors has also been a topic of social concern in recent years, which is related to the physical and mental health development of minors.
Recently, People's Daily Online released the "People's Complaints" platform's top ten consumer rights protection hotspots in 2023. "Recharging online games for minors" is among them. Minors recharging large amounts for online games, due to effective measures to verify the actual identity of the recharger during the payment process. Disputes caused by deficiencies have increased significantly.
In fact, preventing minors from game addiction has always been the focus of youth online protection, and relevant national departments have also issued relevant policies many times.
Previously, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "strictest ban in history", which clearly stipulated that minors under the age of 18 should not play games for more than 3 hours per week, and their recharge frequency and amount must be consistent with their age and intelligence level.
At present, national policies and regulations and game companies are continuously strengthening the protection of minors in specific implementation, and have achieved corresponding results.
However, as the road goes as high as the devil goes, preventing minors from becoming addicted to games is still a long-term task that requires joint governance by the whole society.
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The "Regulations on the Protection of Minors on the Internet", which was officially implemented on January 1 this year, will adhere to social co-governance as an important requirement for the protection of minors on the Internet, and stipulates that relevant government departments and schools, families, industry organizations, news media and other parties Responsibilities of the subject.
This provides important guidance for us to promote the anti-addiction management of minors' games and build a comprehensive, scientific, coordinated and effective protection network.
First, strengthen value guidance and give play to the positive functions of the game.
Online games have a double-edged sword effect.
On the one hand, the government should actively innovate the regulatory mechanism and form a new compliance paradigm with multi-party governance such as policy supervision, industry self-discipline, parent guidance, and school supervision; on the other hand, it should strengthen positive guidance and give full play to game technology that can be interactive, highly simulated, and highly immersive. , refined rendering and other characteristics, pay attention to the new productivity characteristics of functional games, promote the effective application of games in social value fields such as medical care, education, science popularization, vocational training, cultural literacy cultivation, cultural dissemination, etc., and promote the integration of data and reality.
For example, MiHoYo's "Genshin Impact" has launched a "game + cultural tourism" cross-border linkage model, enriched game content with cultural heritage, and has become the revenue champion of overseas mobile games for three consecutive years.
NetEase's "Egg Party" is both educational and entertaining, using the UGC ecosystem to open up a new digital education scenario, launching new features such as "Egg Code" and "Universal Generator", and the number of new UGC maps added every week exceeds one million.
Secondly, we need to consolidate platform responsibilities and build an important dam for game governance.
Game platforms are not only providers of online products and services, processors of personal information, but also manufacturers and sellers of smart terminal products. They should strengthen the online protection of minors through real-name systems, limiting game duration, and other methods in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations.
At the same time, the government should guide enterprises to actively use advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence to deepen governance effectiveness in terms of identity recognition, duration warnings, filtering of inappropriate content, and recharge refunds for minors.
For example, products such as NetEase’s “Danzi Party” have launched the “one-click prohibition of game recharge” and “one-click prohibition of game login” functions.
Parents only need to bind their children's game accounts through the "NetEase Parent Care Platform" public account, and they can conduct comprehensive management and intervention on their children's game time and recharge status 24 hours a day.
Finally, strengthen the cultivation of digital literacy and pay attention to the important role played by education.
Good family education is an important part of the system to prevent online game addiction.
Parents, as their children's first teachers, must correctly understand the impact of the Internet and games on their children, and do a good job of combining elimination and blockage: they cannot simply regard the Internet as a scourge, but they must also correctly guide them while meeting their children's moderate gaming needs. They arrange their time reasonably and develop good living habits.
Schools need to incorporate network safety and healthy Internet use into teaching content. They can combine the National Cyber Security Week publicity activities to promote the establishment of digital literacy days, and carry out special lectures, themed class meetings and other activities to enhance students' self-protection awareness and self-discipline.
In addition, positive interactions should be strengthened to jointly build a multi-dimensional and three-dimensional youth online protection system.
For example, we can learn from the relevant experience of the United Kingdom, Singapore, etc., and establish a parent monitoring platform through the governance model of "government supervision + industry institutions + public welfare organizations + training projects" to realize information sharing between home, school and enterprises; set up a public welfare hotline to provide services to families in need. Provide professional consultation and help; organize various offline activities to enrich minors’ spare time life and reduce their dependence on online games.
(Tang Qiaoying, Secretary-General of the Cyberspace International Governance Research Base of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences)