Children's script entertainment, parents know how much
Not enough understanding, low recognition, and lower proportion of experience
Immersive entertainment, represented by escape rooms and script killings, has developed rapidly and has become a cultural phenomenon loved by teenagers. According to the "China Immersive Scripted Entertainment Industry Research Report" (2021-2022), the scale of the immersive scripted entertainment industry continues to expand, and from 2018 to 2021, the overall number of scripted business premises has increased by 400%, and teenagers have become its fixed consumer group. According to the "Research Report on the Status of Immersive Entertainment for Teenagers", more than seventy percent of teenagers have consumed immersive entertainment products. Meituan's questionnaire survey data also shows that more than eighty percent of the people who consume through the platform are young people aged 18-29.
The rapid popularity of scripted entertainment has attracted a large number of minors to participate, indicating that this emerging format has gradually become "popular" from "niche" and even entered a blowout period. Children flock to this new type of entertainment, thinking that it is fun and fun, has a strong sense of experience, relieves pressure, and can make friends, but the content, form, elements, values, lifestyle, etc. of some scripted entertainment are not suitable for minors, and these risks also make parents worry, and the call for protection of minors is getting higher and higher. Not only that, due to the differences in the views of parents and minors, the rapidly rising scripted entertainment has gradually evolved into a new generation gap between parents and children.
Protecting minors' health and entertainment requires not only the support and action of parents, but also the understanding of minors' attitudes, and the balance between respect and protection. The China Culture and Entertainment Industry Association and the China Youth Research Center have twice conducted scripted entertainment research on teenagers and their parents in the eastern, central, western and northeastern parts of China. The survey of adolescents was carried out in 10 cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Xi'an, Chengdu and Shenyang, and the participants were junior high school students, high school students, college students, and working youth, involving more than 60 schools of junior high school, high school and university, as well as multiple institutions, enterprises and institutions, and a total of 8816 valid samples were collected, including 4808 questionnaires for minors. Surveys of parents of minors were conducted in Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Xi'an and Shenyang, and 6582,<> valid questionnaires were collected. Combined with the data of the two surveys, analyzing the views and needs of parents and minors on scripted entertainment is conducive to better protecting the rights and interests of minors.
More than seventy percent of parents have heard of scripted entertainment, and only more than 10% have experienced it
The survey found that more than seventy percent of parents understand scripted entertainment. Among minors, 76.7% of junior high school students and 80.3% of high school students knew about scripted entertainment. It can be seen that the proportion of parents who know about scripted entertainment is slightly lower than that of minors. However, not many parents have experienced scripted entertainment. Only 13.1% have played escape room or script kill, and nearly ninety percent have not played it. This compares to 71.6% of junior high school students and 69.9% of high school students who have played Escape Room or Script Kill.
The large gap leads to parents not understanding enough about minors' entertainment preferences and entertainment needs. According to the survey, 30% of parents (0.68%) believe that their children like offline script entertainment. However, the proportion of minors who said they liked it or liked it was 7.40%, and the difference between parents and minors was nearly <> percentage points.
Moreover, an age breakdown of the surveyed adolescents found that the younger the age, the higher the proportion of "liking" scripted entertainment, 12.38% under 5, 12.15% in 27-9 years old, and 15.18% in 20-2 years old. The proportion of young people aged 30-35 who "liked it" was 18.5%, and 36.12% of those over 4.
Nearly 10% of parents do not understand how often their children play screenplay
Understand the frequency and consumption of your child's offline script entertainment, so that you can know your child's leisure arrangements and possible risks. However, the survey found that more than 5% of parents explicitly said they did not know about their children's entertainment. For the frequency of children's offline script entertainment, more than <>% of parents think that their children play occasionally, the proportion of children playing once a month or more is nearly <>%, nearly <>% of parents think that their children do not carry out scripted entertainment, and nearly <>% say that they do not understand whether their children do scripted entertainment. However, a survey of minors found that about <>% of minors play once a month or more, and about <>% of them play once a week or more.
Parents believe that minors should not spend more than 1 hour per play
The contact time and consumption limit of minors' scripted entertainment are important aspects of the protection of minors, and excessive consumption or excessive entertainment time is not conducive to the health of minors. The survey found that more than 1% of parents believe that minors' scripted entertainment should not exceed 1 hour each time, the proportion of 2.22% believes that 8-2 hours, 3.5% of 89-3 hours, 1.12% of more than 8 hours, and 14.100% say it does not matter. In terms of consumption, nearly eighty percent of parents believe that the consumption limit for minors' script entertainment should be within 101 yuan per time; 300.14% of parents think that they can spend 74-300 yuan, 2.48% of parents who are more than 5 yuan, and 39.<>% of parents say it doesn't matter.
It can be seen that most parents treat the duration and consumption of minors' scripted entertainment more rationally, and believe that there should be restrictions on the duration and consumption, and it is best to control it within 1 hour and less than 100 yuan. There are also a small number of parents who still lack awareness of the protection of minors, and do not care about the entertainment time and consumption of minors' scripts.
Parents believe that fun and science fiction scripts are more suitable for minors
The survey found that most parents believe that joyful and sci-fi scripts are more suitable for minors, accounting for 66.62% and 64.78% respectively. In addition, parents also recognize mechanical scripts, accounting for nearly <>%. The scripts of spy warfare, emotion, magic, and martial arts are not recognized by parents, accounting for more than one percent and less than two percent.
It is worth noting that the proportion of parents who think that horror scripts are suitable for minors is the lowest (6.73%), ranked last. This shows that the vast majority of parents believe that horror scripts are not suitable for minors. The survey of minors found that the types of scripts that junior high school students liked were joy (54.90%), horror (53.39%), science fiction (50.88%), emotion (45.35%), magic (32.91%), spy warfare (28.14%), martial arts (23.99%), mechanical (20.98%), etc. The types of scripts that high school students like are joy (52.02%), emotion (50.43%), horror (48.12%), science fiction (43.06%), magic (28.03%), spy warfare (26.73%), martial arts (21.24%), machinery (16.75%), etc.
From these data, it can be seen that minors and parents are the most recognized for happy scripts, but the big difference is that parents are more approved of mechanical scripts and the least approve of horror scripts. Minors prefer horror scripts and do not recognize mechanical scripts. The study also found that the younger the age, the more they like horror scripts, and the proportion of junior high school students, high school students, college students, and working youth who like horror scripts is 53.4%, 48.1%, 39.7%, and 33.1% respectively.
Parents are most looking forward to the scripted entertainment function to improve minors' sense of exploration and critical thinking ability
For the function of scripted entertainment, the biggest help parents hope to bring to minors is to improve their awareness of inquiry and thinking ability, accounting for nearly eighty percent, ranking first; Secondly, it is hoped that scripted entertainment will bring joy, reduce pressure, and expand children's extracurricular knowledge and comprehensive quality, both of which account for more than 60%; More than half of them improve social and cooperative skills, develop children's reading and writing skills, improve imagination, and improve critical thinking.
This shows that parents are full of expectations for scripted entertainment, hoping to have a greater help for the growth of minors. The survey also found that most parents believe that minors especially need scripts with healthy and positive energy, which are more educational, and have educational elements such as sunshine, happiness, patriotism, and science.
Parents believe that the most effective regulatory measure is to create more positive scripts
In terms of supervision, parents believe that the most effective measures are to create more positive energy scripts, followed by strengthening script content review, setting reminders for minors to be age-appropriate, and improving the quality of script text, accounting for more than 36%. For minors' exposure to scripted entertainment activities, parents believe that the most important thing is to set up reminders for minors' appropriate age, followed by establishing a script grading and classification management system and developing script products suitable for minors. For "setting no minors allowed", the proportion of parents agreeing was the lowest (07.<>%). This also shows that most parents are not opposed to minors' exposure to scripted entertainment, but hope to expose minors to healthy scripted entertainment through effective supervision.
A comparative survey of minors found that the proportion of junior high school students and high school students who agreed that "minors are not allowed to enter" is more than 10%. This also shows that minors are even less in favor of segregating them from scripted entertainment. Moreover, junior high school students and high school students believe that the most important measure to strengthen supervision is reasonable fees, ranking first among all measures. This may also show that minors feel certain consumption pressure in scripted entertainment.
A few tips for adults
Scripted entertainment is a new type of entertainment that teenagers like, bringing a strong immersive experience to teenagers. However, adults do not know enough about the scripted entertainment activities and needs of minors, and their recognition is not high, and the proportion of "empathy" with minors is even lower. The author suggests:
Respect the entertainment needs of minors
Culture and entertainment are first and foremost the rights that minors should enjoy, and secondly, the topics and bridges for adults to communicate with minors. Only by understanding the cultural and entertainment needs of minors, respecting minors' cultural and entertainment choices, taking the practical protection of minors' entertainment rights as the cornerstone, and taking a cautious and enlightened attitude as the support, can we truly build a bridge for dialogue between the two, better guide and protect them, and effectively bridge this new generation gap between adults and minors. Therefore, adults should rationally and objectively view teenagers' love of scripted entertainment, and take understanding and respect as the premise of protection and guidance. Adults should put themselves in a correct position, understand why minors like scripted entertainment, and accept minors' exploration of new entertainment activities.
The child's leisure life should be understood
After-school leisure is an important support for enriching the lives of minors and improving their comprehensive quality. When after-school time brings relaxation and happiness to children, it may also bring some safety risks, and even cause injury and danger. However, many parents do not understand their children's leisure life, only focus on their studies and exams, and do not know who their children play with, where they play, and what they play with after class. Some parents only learn about their children's entertainment and leisure according to their own interests. For example, if you don't want your child to play online games, you never mention it to your child. Parents should know who their children play with in script entertainment, the type of script they like, how long they play, how much money they spend, etc., so that they can better protect minors, rather than just asking for money.
Participate in your child's scripted entertainment
If possible, parents may wish to have scripted entertainment with their children, especially to participate in some parent-child scripted activities. In the activities, parents can better understand their children's entertainment interests and entertainment partners, and can also consider the safety of the scripted entertainment activities that their children participate in. Parents should have awareness of the protection of minors, and observe in combination with the characteristics of scripted entertainment and the age characteristics and psychological characteristics of children. This is also a good parent-child time and parent-child topic, and parents can also provide value guidance on the values, ideology, etc. involved in the script in the company.
Seize the opportunity to carry out leisure education and aesthetic education
Healthy leisure can make the body and mind develop comprehensively, and the quality can be improved in an all-round way. Leisure education is an indispensable educational content that enables every member of society to enjoy a high quality of life, and it is also a humanistic quality that contemporary children especially need. To live a healthy leisure life in leisure time, you need to have leisure literacy and aesthetic literacy. Therefore, parents should pay attention to the optimization of the family cultural environment, improve their own leisure literacy and aesthetic literacy, and pay attention to leisure education and aesthetic education for their children in leisure activities. For example, encourage children to carry out healthy offline leisure activities, participate in positive energy script creation, assist children to experience life in the form of script interpretation, guide children to enjoy a beautiful leisure life and high-quality leisure resources near the family, such as taking children to exercise, watching theatrical performances, visiting museums and art galleries, watching documentaries, etc., and cultivate children's cultural life with healthy aesthetics.
(This article is a phased achievement of the major project "Research on the Mechanism and Method of Political Guidance for Children in the New Era" of the Research Center for Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League.) Sun Hongyan is a researcher at the China Youth Research Center, and Fan Ce is a master's student in the Department of Youth Work of the China Youth Political College)
Sun Hongyan Fan Ce Source: China Youth Daily