On January 9, Tencent Games released the "Notice on the Restriction of Games for Minors during the 2024 Winter Vacation and Spring Festival Holiday", with a total of 16 hours of games for minors during the winter vacation. Many people suddenly realize that in recent years, there seems to be a lot less incidents and discussions about minors addicting to online games. According to the "2023 Progress Report on the Protection of Minors in China's Game Industry", in terms of public opinion, the attention to the time limit for minors to play games will drop by 70% in 2023.
For minors to play games online, and even to surf the Internet, it has always been accompanied by various worries of parents and all walks of life, but with the in-depth penetration of the Internet in modern society, the scale of underage Internet users continues to expand, and the younger age is a reality that cannot be ignored.
Since January 1 this year, the "Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online" has been officially implemented, which is the first comprehensive legislation for the protection of minors online issued by the mainland. In order to get a clearer picture of the current situation of minors online, let's answer a few questions together.
How many underage Internet users are there?
Since 2018, the Department for the Protection of Youth Rights and Interests of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League and the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) have conducted a nationwide survey on minors' Internet use for five consecutive years, and the "Fifth National Survey Report on Internet Use of Minors" released in late December 2023 shows that by the end of 2022, the number of underage Internet users has exceeded 193 million.
From 2018 to 2022, the Internet penetration rate of minors at the primary school level increased from 89.5% to 95.1%. Moreover, according to the "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network", the number of Internet users under the age of 10 has exceeded 40 million.
Judging from the time of Internet access, the trend of "young age" of netizens is becoming more and more obvious. According to the 5th National Survey on Internet Use by Minors, in 2022, 34.2% of primary school students started using the Internet before entering elementary school, compared to 28.2% in 2021.
However, in terms of the total amount, statistics as of June 2023 show that after the growth of previous years, the proportion of Internet users under the age of 10 has declined, and the total number has declined, and the 52nd "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet Network" shows that as of June 2023, the scale of Internet users in the mainland has reached 1.079 billion, of which 3.8% are under the age of 10, a total of 41 million. To a certain extent, it shows that parents have begun to control the online behavior of young Internet users.
What are the main reasons for underage Internet users?
According to the survey, 88.7% of underage Internet users regularly use the Internet for academic Xi, and the proportion of underage Internet users who believe that the Internet has had a positive impact on their learning Xi has increased from 53.0% in 2018 to 77.4% in 2022. In addition, playing games and watching short videos online are the main online leisure and entertainment activities for minors, with 67.8% and 54.1% regularly engaging in these activities, respectively, and online chatting as the main online communication and social activities of minors, accounting for 53.6%.
The vast information at your fingertips and the clicks on high-quality courses are considerable, which undoubtedly helps minors expand their knowledge and effectively answer problems, but at the same time, the "double-edged sword" attribute of the Internet is also more obvious in underage netizens.
At the 2023 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, UNICEF Deputy Resident Representative in China, Bimanda, said: "We cannot ignore the contradiction between the benefits of children being online and the potential risks they face. ”
In addition to online Xi, playing games and watching short videos are also the main activities that underage Internet users engage in when surfing the Internet. In the survey of parents and teachers, it was found that 51.8% of parents and 69.9% of teachers believed that the problem of Internet addiction caused by online games and short videos was the most important problem for minors to deal with in Internet use.
Is the problem of minors addicted to the Internet serious?
On the question of whether minors are addicted to the Internet, there are certain differences in cognition between adults and minors.
According to the "Survey Report on the Protection of Minors' Online Rights and Interests and Satisfaction with Their Sense of Security" completed based on the "2022 Netizen Cyber Security Satisfaction Survey", nearly eighty percent (76.99%) of the adults surveyed are worried about the problem of minors' "Internet addiction".
However, from the perspective of underage Internet users, most minors do not consider themselves to be very dependent on the Internet. According to the 5th National Survey on Internet Use by Minors, 20% of underage Internet users consider themselves to be dependent on the Internet (very dependent or somewhat dependent).
In terms of specific online time, the data shows that in 2022, 11.1% of underage Internet users will spend more than 2 hours a day on weekdays, and 13.1% will spend more than 5 hours on holidays. This group may have problems with excessive use of the Internet.
Who is responsible for guiding and managing minors online?
There are also certain cognitive differences between minors and adults on the question of "who should mainly guide and manage minors online". In the survey on the satisfaction of minors with the protection of their online rights and interests and sense of security, the respondents believed that their families, themselves and schools were the top three responsible subjects, while the adults surveyed believed that the top three were family, school and Internet platforms.
In fact, the healthy use of the Internet by minors does require efforts from various parties. Taking online games as an example, the "2023 Progress Report on the Protection of Minors in China's Game Industry" shows that in terms of public opinion, the attention to the time limit for minors to play will drop by 70% in 2023, and the current focus of the protection of minors in the game industry is shifting from focusing on preventing addiction to diversification. This is inseparable from the improvement of policies and regulations, the intentional restrictions of parents, the progress of technical means such as the "youth protection mode/anti-addiction mode", and the joint efforts of game-related companies and platforms in the protection of minors. In the first quarter of 2023, Tencent's underage game time and turnover accounted for 0.4% of the total game time and 0.7% of the total turnover in Tencent's domestic market, a significant decrease of 96% and 90% compared with the same period in 2020.
The "Regulations on the Protection of Minors on the Internet", which came into effect on January 1 this year, have further increased the prevention and control of Internet addiction, requiring teachers to improve their ability to identify and intervene in the early stage of minor students' Internet addiction, strengthening guardians' guidance on minors' safe and reasonable use of the Internet, and network service providers should reasonably limit the amount of minors' online consumption, and prevent and resist negative value orientations such as the supremacy of traffic. The government, schools, families, society, and other parties are working together to create an online environment conducive to the physical and mental health of minors.
Source: Popular News client