Midnight Ban Coming For Child Gamers

South Korea has an estimated two million citizens with internet addiction and the government has taken another step to slow the spread of this technological epidemic.

Source:

South Korea's government is close to adopting a "Cinderella" law to ban youngsters from playing online games past midnight amid growing concerns about Internet addiction, officials said Thursday.

A bill to be submitted to parliament as early as this month will require South Korean online game companies to cut off services at midnight for users registered as younger than 16, the culture and family ministries said.

"The thing about online games is, once you are in it, it is extremely hard to get out of it, especially if you are a young kid," Jo Rin, a ministry official in charge of the law, told AFP.

"A lot of kids play games all night long and have trouble studying at school and going about their normal lives during daytime. We believe the law is necessary to ensure their health and a right to sleep."

The online services would resume at six the following morning, he said, adding there would be a year-long waiting period until the law takes effect so that companies can prepare for it.

The government is also considering requiring companies to limit young users' access to online games to a maximum number of hours a week or a day if parents request this, said Jo.

South Korea is one of the world's most wired societies, but there have been sporadic reports of deaths related to Internet game addiction.

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The government, which estimates that South Korea has about two million web addicts, is already launching one campaign to combat the affliction.

From next year, it will offer free software to people at risk, to limit the time they spend on the web.

How does this work?  As of now, most children have to enter their Korean ID numbers to register accounts and play interactive games online.  There is nothing to stop these children from playing video games offline after midnight, but the real addictions come from virtual online worlds where you interact with other people over the internet.  These accounts will just be locked out or frozen between the hours of midnight and 6AM.  I don't really see this as being too much of a violation of personal freedom.  If it is okay to close bars to stop people from drinking to death, why can't we turn off video games to stop people from gaming to death?