South Korea May Limit Young Online Gamers to 2 Hours a Day...to Prevent Bullying

[unreal.livejournal.com]

Gaming addiction is no laughing matter: addicted gamers have lost their jobs, their spouses, and in rare cases, their lives, for non-stop gaming in a virtual world rather than living in the actual one. In late 2011, the South Korean government took steps to curb videogame addiction by creating its “shutdown” law, which prevents gamers under 16 from playing online games between midnight and 6 am. But that might not be the only step it takes.

South Korea may implement an additional law, the “cooling off” law. According to MSNBC,

“…the Cooling Off system will cause a game to be shut down automatically after two hours of being played. Gamers can log back in, but only after 10 minutes to “rest,” and only once per 24 hours. It was not specified how long the second session will last, but it is presumed to be no longer than the initial time allotted.

However, the reason behind the “cooling off” law isn’t to save the healths of gamers. No, this law may come into effect to…prevent bullying?

Kotaku notes that the South Korean government ties videogame addiction to bullying in schools. But it has not provided evidence (such as studies and papers) that prove videogames lead to bullying.

From personal experience, I would say that the gamers are less likely to become bullies and more likely to become victims of bullying. (Of course, gamers talk all kinds of smack when behind the keyboard. It would be naive to think that no gamer has ever threatened another player from the comfort of home or a PC bang.)

Considering that many gamer deaths stem from exhaustion, deep-vein thrombosis, and other ways that can be prevented by standing up and moving around, a ten-minute period away from the computer might be a good idea. But having statistics based on psychological studies, about gaming addiction and its potentially resultant bullying, is an even better one.

Source: forbes

Comments

[ari-meh.livejournal.com]

those reasons... no.
that really doesn't seem the best way to prevent/stop bullying at all... do they even know what bullying is and what it stems from?
oh, south korea.

i do think teens need to have a "curfew" when it comes to games, though.

[loverboy.livejournal.com]

No. Let parents parent their children, not the government.

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

this.

[poppy-sky.livejournal.com]

I think you should let people do what they want to do with their free time, specially adults. That system could work well for parents to limit the time their children spend playing videogames.

But bullying because of videogames? Of course, and Pikachu is the spawn of Satan.

[k0dama.livejournal.com]

sounds good.
Some bullies will make their victims farm game money for them, or make characters for them.

[xkimchi-ninja.livejournal.com]

That just seems really annoying.

[czarny.livejournal.com]

lol.

[hinadori.livejournal.com]

Typical knee-jerk response to an issue instead of actually DEALING with the real issue.

[uledy.livejournal.com]

I disregard everything that comes from forbes blogs tbh.

But anyway, this is way too much of an invasive move for the SK government. Regulating minors' gaming should be left to the parents, not the government.

Man, I need to stop reading all these dis-topian books, causing me to get creeped out and paranoid....

[rennehollic.livejournal.com]

.....
okay then

[jonghyunf.livejournal.com]

asia is really backwards when it comes to gaming and true issues

[ifuckingluvya.livejournal.com]

I doubt it will prevent bullying but I think is necessary to shut down some much escapism

[falling-empress.livejournal.com]

umm how the fuck do you enforce this? tyrannical...

[yanet09.livejournal.com]

honestly, if i was an online gamer in korea this would annoy me to high heaven.

as a minor i have parents to tell me when i should stop playing my games and go to sleep, and, as far as i know, the government had absolutely no say so in my birth or conception so stop trying to be my parents and get their shit together with the real issues.

[ghost-whisper.livejournal.com]

So rather than starting/improving anti-bullying programs, you basically tell the victims "jeez, if you weren't such geeks you might actually be popular."

Wow. I'm impressed. /sarcasm

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

I'm not getting the link between the two cases. Weird reasons and there's probably something we're missing here. I mean, I can understand putting a curfew on online gaming for minors but to prevent bullying? what?