Japan's Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" has been on the road for two years, and high school students sued the government for infringing game freedom and lost the lawsuit

In April 2020, the nationally exclusive "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" (ネット・ゲーム Dependence Disorders Regulations) in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan officially hit the road. Schools or parents in Kagawa Prefecture are obliged to make children and adolescents under the age of 18 in the prefecture:

1. On weekdays, you can only play electric games for up to 60 minutes a day, and up to 90 minutes on holidays.
2. If you want to play electric games or use devices such as smartphones, middle and primary school students can only play until 9 pm at the latest, and high school students before 10 pm.

Although there are no relevant penalties for this local ordinance, it has attracted much attention because it is the first in Japan, and this ordinance has been controversial from its proposal to its adoption.

Extended reading: Only one hour of electric play a day, Kagawa Prefecture passed the "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" as the first case in Japan

High school student who sued Kagawa Prefecture 2 years ago loses case

In September of the same year, a 17-year-old high school student in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, and his legal representative (mother) decided to file a lawsuit with Kagawa Prefecture, accusing Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Ordinance" for violating Article 13 of the Constitution. The guaranteed right to pursue personal happiness has seriously infringed upon the freedom of the parties to play games. The process of formulating the regulations is not open and transparent enough . Not only did they not make meeting minutes, they believed that playing games would lead to low academic and physical strength of school children, so it is not scientific at all to limit the time for games. Based on this, it seeks compensation of 1.6 million yen from Kagawa Prefecture.

Kagawa prefecture maintains that the content of the regulations only recommends the length of time for minors to play games at home. There are no penalties or obligations, and there are no restrictions on the rights of prefectural citizens.

However, this lawsuit has changed this year. At the last hearing (the 7th oral argument) in May this year, the plaintiff hoped to withdraw the lawsuit, but Kagawa Prefecture, the defendant, believed that "there is no way to withdraw the lawsuit so that the lawsuit has not happened" and refused to withdraw the lawsuit.

The Asahi Shimbun contacted the plaintiff. The 17-year-old high school student is now a 19-year-old college student. He said that the lawyer who appointed him resigned in March this year. He wanted to withdraw the lawsuit because he wanted to find another lawyer. View arguments. On the other hand, the plaintiff's original lawyer told the Asahi Shimbun that since the age of majority in the Civil Code has dropped to 18 from this year, he has no way to contact the college student himself, and he has no way to confirm the intention of the party. , decided to leave the lawsuit.

The lawsuit ended with the plaintiffs wanting to dismiss them but the defendants unwilling to dismiss them. Today (8/30) the Takamatsu District Court's decision was released, Amano Tomoko rejected the plaintiff's request, and the lawsuit ended.

2 years after the ordinance hit the road, the revision of the law seems to be far away

Although seeking judicial relief this way, in the absence of other plaintiffs, there is no new development for the time being. But during this time, there have also been other people who want to change this regulation through other channels.

The original content of the ordinance actually had an accompanying clause: "2 years after the implementation of the ordinance, a review will be conducted depending on the implementation status." Therefore, in November last year (2021), two engineers from Takamatsu City petitioned the Kagawa Prefectural Council, hoping The Kagawa prefectural council could start discussing whether the ordinance needs to be amended two years before the ordinance expired, but the council voted against it by a majority vote.

In April of this year, the speaker of the Kagawa Prefectural Assembly was replaced by Takajo Soyuki. When a reporter asked whether Takajo Zongyuki needed to revise the content of the regulations, Takajo Zongyuki believed that there was no need to revise it at present, and let Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" be revised. Seems far away.

Yasushi Sanno of Kagawa University School of Law pointed out that although the contents of the regulations are not binding, it does not mean that they must be revised after 2 years, but this regulation was made by the Kagawa Prefectural Council after all. With this in mind, there should be a set of methods for checking whether the ordinance is effective. For example, Kanagawa Prefecture has a set of inspection standards, and all local ordinances must regularly review "is this ordinance necessary now?" 5 points, including whether it conforms to the basic policy of the prefectural government" and "Is there any doubt that the content of the regulations violates the constitution or violates the law?" Relying on this set of inspection standards, Kanagawa Prefecture revised 3 of the 8 local ordinances reviewed in 2021.

The time spent on the Internet is shortened, but the proportion of addicted to the Internet has increased

In fact, since 2014, the Kagawa Prefectural Board of Education has announced the status of schoolchildren's addiction to smartphones or video games every three years. After Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" was launched, a survey of 4,881 primary school students to senior high school students from September to October 2020 found that compared with the survey three years ago, the daily time spent playing mobile phones The proportion of heavy users who play more than 3 hours a day has decreased, but the proportion of skating for 1-3 hours a day has increased.

The report believes that Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Ordinance" has indeed effectively reduced the length of time that schoolchildren use mobile phones every day. However, this survey coincides with the epidemic period, during which there is sometimes a need for distance teaching. This survey found that the increase in the number of students who spend 1-3 hours online is partly due to the use of online teaching websites or applications. It is worth continuing to follow up.

However, the survey on the existence of video game addiction found that the proportion of schoolchildren who meet 5 of the following 8 options, whether it is middle school students (3.4%→6.3%) or high school students (2.9%→4.6%), all are There is an increasing trend. This is the first survey of primary school students on video game addiction, and 4.2% of primary school students meet the following 5 or more conditions.

1. feel addicted to the online world
2. Spending more time online for satisfaction
3. Although it is desirable to reduce the time spent online, or not to use the Internet at all, it is often impossible to do so
4. Feeling unable to calm down and falling into negative anxiety
5. Spend longer online than you thought before you started online
6. Internet access affects relationships and school affairs.
7. Lies to parents or school teachers in order to hide the fact that they are overly addicted to the Internet
8. In order to avoid problems or to experience negative emotions such as despair and anxiety, you want to escape to the online world before going online

Whether Kagawa Prefecture's "Internet and Game Addiction Countermeasures Regulations" can really effectively reduce the Internet or video game addiction of school children requires long-term attention.

This article is simultaneously published in the Japanese current affairs まとめ translation of Kaori Ishikawa .