{"id":1633543,"date":"2022-09-06T07:02:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T11:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1633543"},"modified":"2022-09-06T07:03:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T11:03:02","slug":"parents-dont-let-the-chinese-communist-party-protect-kids-from-screens-more-than-you-do-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/parents-dont-let-the-chinese-communist-party-protect-kids-from-screens-more-than-you-do-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents, Don\u2019t Let The Chinese Communist Party Protect Kids From Screens More Than You Do"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fparents-dont-let-the-chinese-communist-party-protect-kids-from-screens-more-than-you-do-2%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1633543&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>About a decade ago, \u201csomething began to go wrong in the lives of teens,\u201d notes a <a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/protecting-teens-from-big-tech-five-policy-ideas-for-states\">new report by the Institute for Family Studies and the Ethics and Public Policy Center<\/a>. \u201cDepression, self-harm, suicide attempts, and suicide all increased sharply among U.S. adolescents between 2011 and 2019, with similar trends worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Report authors Clare Morrell, Adam Candeub, Jean Twenge, and Brad Wilcox identify one culprit as bearing most of the blame: \u201cThe increase occurred at the same time social media use moved from optional to virtually mandatory among teens, making social media a prime suspect for the sudden rise in youth mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The authors\u2019 goal is to push policymakers at both the national and state levels to take more aggressive action to combat a real pandemic: social media addiction among the youth. \u201cTeens who spend five or more hours a day on social media are twice as likely to be depressed as those who do not use social media. Several random assignment experiments demonstrate that social media use is a cause, not just a correlation, of poor mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They note \u201cneither Congress nor the Courts have taken adequate steps to protect children from platforms that promote anxiety, envy, pornography, loneliness, sleeplessness, and suicide.\u201d Include in that group a large number of American parents.<\/p>\n<p>But you know who is aggressively combating the many ills stemming from social media and smartphones? China. Yes, that\u2019s right \u2014 a regime that oversees concentration camps, bans free speech, and asserts the right to control women\u2019s fertility is more serious about not letting kids destroy themselves online than many American parents are.<\/p>\n<p>For years, China has been pursuing vigorous measures to restrict these dangerous tools of the digital age. Whether or not legislators take the actions suggested in the report, there\u2019s one immediate takeaway for all concerned American parents: don\u2019t let the Chinese Communist Party do a better job of parenting than you.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Even China Is Protecting Children<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/international\/parents-laud-chinese-rules-aimed-at-kids-unhealthy-gaming-121092000224_1.html\">2018 estimate by the government<\/a> estimated one in 10 Chinese minors was addicted to the internet. Consider some of the measures the PRC has taken in response, which are available voluntarily to any parent.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly one year ago, the Chinese government <a href=\"https:\/\/asia.nikkei.com\/Politics\/China-limits-online-gaming-to-3-hours-a-week-for-schoolchildren\">announced<\/a> new regulations that children under the age of 18 would only be allowed to play online for just an hour a day and only on weekends. That decision followed an earlier regulation two years prior that limited underage gaming to three hours on holidays and an hour and a half on other days. Beijing also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/china\/why-how-china-is-drastically-limiting-online-gaming-under-18s-2021-08-31\/\">established<\/a> clinics that combine therapy and military drills for people suffering from what authorities label \u201cgaming disorders,\u201d or addictions.<\/p>\n<p>In May of this year, China <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2022\/05\/10\/chinas-grip-further-tightens-on-youths-children-limited-in-watching-supporting-streamers\/\">declared<\/a> that in response to \u201cchaos\u201d on the internet, those watching live-streamed content via a minor\u2019s account would have all streams locked out after 10 p.m., and that those responsible for creating content would \u201cneed to strengthen the management of peak hours for such shows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-55902778\">In February<\/a> the government banned children from using their phones in school and mandated that pupils would only be allowed to bring cell phones to school with written parental consent. The ban was necessary, argued Chinese authorities, to protect children\u2019s eyesight, improve their concentration, and curb internet addiction. Any American school could do this voluntarily in kids\u2019 best interests, and should \u2014 no concentration camps needed.<\/p>\n<p>In May of this year, PRC authorities <a href=\"https:\/\/theprint.in\/world\/china-bans-mobile-apps-for-pre-school-children\/953612\/\">decreed<\/a> that mobile apps that target preschool children were banned. Similarly, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cmswire.com\/digital-experience\/5-ways-china-is-trying-to-unaddict-kids-from-social-media\/\">per order of the Chinese Government<\/a>, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, in September of last year instituted blackout hours during the night, built-in breaks, and time limits in order to curb youth use of the popular app. Douyin and rival service Kuaishou <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-58625934\">earlier in 2019<\/a> had begun trialing \u201canti-addiction measures\u201d such as child locks in order to limit children\u2019s time on the platforms.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Let\u2019s Do Better than the Authoritarians<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Some of the PRC\u2019s actions against the internet, social media, and smartphones are similar to what is proposed in the IFS\/EPPC report. Their very first suggestion is to mandate age verification laws, both for pornography websites and social media platforms.<\/p>\n<p>The fourth is to enact a complete shutdown of social media platforms at night for kids. Their \u201cbonus proposal\u201d is to ban all persons under 18 from social media. To American parents, these may sound extreme, but once you take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/ledger.humanetech.com\/\">the evidence<\/a> that social media destroys kids\u2019 ability to think, focus, and socialize, it starts to make a lot more sense.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, there\u2019s no reason we parents can\u2019t take many of these actions ourselves. If you are concerned about the increase in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/dangerous-digital-rituals-is-your-child-sleep-deprived\/\">sleep deprivation<\/a> among American youth, don\u2019t let your kids be on screens for an hour or two before bedtime.<\/p>\n<p>If you are concerned about <a href=\"https:\/\/gazette.com\/premium\/battling-the-pandemic-surge-in-pornography-addiction\/article_2eac96ee-dcfc-11ec-baec-2b1015f6f28c.html\">pornography addiction<\/a>, set up filters on the computer and mobile devices \u2014 it\u2019s very easy to change the settings on a smartphone so only \u201capproved\u201d websites can be accessed, and new apps can\u2019t be downloaded. If you are concerned about <a href=\"https:\/\/ahca.myflorida.com\/LetKidsBeKids\/page4.shtml\">gender dysphoria<\/a>, don\u2019t let your kids have access to social media sites where the bizarre propaganda of radical gender ideology is being constantly disseminated.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>We Can Do Better than an Evil Regime<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The authors of the IFS\/EPPC report end their document by noting that \u201cone day, we will look back at social media companies like ByteDance (Tiktok) and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and compare them to tobacco companies like Philip Morris (Marlboro) and R.J. Reynolds (Camel).\u201d That\u2019s a fair analogy: Both Big Tech and Big Tobacco deceptively targeted young people to increase their popularity and profits, and both have done terrible harm to American youth. And both have tried to obscure their culpability for causing nationwide health crises.<\/p>\n<p>A generation or two ago, parents concerned about their kids\u2019 health didn\u2019t tell kids it was okay to smoke cigarettes during certain hours. They didn\u2019t think simply carefully monitoring their kids\u2019 consumption of tobacco was sufficient. Nor did they think <em>certain <\/em>tobacco products were permissible. Rather, they had come to understand that nicotine was a dangerous enough drug that it needed to be kept away from their children \u2014 <em>no exceptions<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>That, I would argue, needs to be how parents today view social media and smartphones. The things are so dangerous <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thepublicdiscourse.com\/2019\/04\/50540\/\">even adults<\/a> struggle with keeping their influence in check. <\/p>\n<p>Surely we love our children enough to recognize that the harm of social media and smartphones outweighs the benefits. The vast majority of American parents love their kids, and we can do better than an evil regime in our parenting tactics. Let\u2019s prove it.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelor\u2019s in history and master\u2019s in teaching from the University of Virginia and a master\u2019s in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About a decade ago, \u201csomething began to go wrong in the lives of teens,\u201d notes a new report by the Institute for Family Studies and the Ethics and Public Policy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":658,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1633543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/658"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1633543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1633543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1633543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1633543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1633543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}