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this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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The west is just catching up to China which implemented screen time limits for under 18s a year ago.
There is a growing body of evidence that shows that social media use during development years is changing the way brains usually develop, we don't know what effect that will have 20 years down the line but it seems pretty risky to just let it happen and see. There's also plenty of evidence linking to social harm and depression.
Chinese limits:
Children under 8 are limited to 40 minutes daily
Ages 8–15 are limited to 1 hour
Ages 16–17 are allowed 2 hours.
The west will come up with its own boundaries and it will spread everywhere because the science is solid, these services are genuinely damaging to attention spans.
Some evidence:
Kids that spend 3hours or more on social media per day have 2x risk of anxiety and depression.
Another study showing it causes depression
It literally changes the way kids develop parts of their brain, we don't know what the effects of that will be longterm.
There is a downside to outright banning it though. Social media use is well studied to drastically improve the quality of life for LGBT children who find important social support and communities. They show decreased depression and anxiety from their usage.
I like China's approach better because it doesn't impose a blanket ban, this means that the good side can still exist while the bad effects are limited.
How do they impose it?
Devices have a mandatory child-mode that tracks it. ISPs too which requires a login with account attached to a real ID. This wasn't really very difficult for China to implement though because they've used real ID for online accounts for multiple decades already with associated normalisation and trust.
I think you can achieve the same thing with a degree of separation through something like the EU's digital wallet initiative so neither the website nor the government actually gets an identity of the user. I have not heard criticisms of that but it also seems like a fairly new idea, some may emerge.