Japanese cities want to limit access to video games for minors

Text by: RFI Follow

China launched the movement last year. Now, Japan, in turn, has decided to limit the number of hours that young people are allowed to spend in front of the screens. The objective is to prevent addictions to digital, Japanese adolescents being the biggest users in the world of instant messaging and network video games.

Publicity

With our correspondent in Tokyo, Bruno Duval

An hour to an hour and a half of video games or the Internet per day. No more. It is now the rule in the Yokohama region. Soon, this will also be the case in Nagoya, the second city of the country, and the capital Tokyo may also soon take the plunge.

According to polls, public opinion considers these prefectural orders exaggerated.
In addition, at this time, due to the epidemic, the Japanese are instructed to continue to go out as little as possible from their home. According to the Tokyoites interviewed, these restrictions therefore fall particularly badly.

►Read also: China imposes a curfew on online video games for minors

“  Frankly, this is not the time. It's not funny for children to be locked up all day long at home, so without video games it would be even more painful for them,  ”explains a young woman. "  Of course you have to set limits for teens, otherwise they would spend their lives taped to their smartphones. But politicians don't have to get involved: it has to be decided with the family,  ”laments a passerby.

"  This is nonsense. First, an hour a day is not enough. Then, this measure is inapplicable. The police will come to people's homes to check the time they have spent in front of the screens, protests another Tokoyite. Above all, it stigmatizes video games. However, they teach children a lot of things: strategies, concentration, reactivity, etc. In short, they are very formative  ”

For many lawyers, these regulations violate individual freedoms. Justice will have to rule, because with the support of his parents, a 17-year-old has just brought an action for unconstitutionality.

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• Japan
• Video games