韩国对学龄儿童实行网游宵禁

为解决青少年网游上瘾的问题，韩国最近计划对学龄儿童实行网游宵禁，即从午夜到次日早晨8点期间对学龄儿童关闭网络游戏服务，并建议家长对孩子玩网游的时间进行限制。在本周公布的这份计划中，韩国文化部同时要求网游公司在年底前安装自行限时系统以减少青少年玩网游的时间。另外，韩国政府还允许网游运行方对游戏玩家的年龄等身份信息进行监控，由此不但可以更有效地实施网游宵禁，同时还能够了解到是否有青少年利用父母的身份信息超时玩游戏。韩国是世界上家庭高速宽带网络最普及的国家之一。今年3月，曾有一对夫妇因沉迷网游导致他们尚在襁褓中的婴儿饿死。这一事件使得引起人们的广泛关注并呼吁政府采取措施应对网友上瘾的问题。

South Korea plans to cut off online video games at midnight for school-age children and allow parents to set limits on playing hours to curb problems of Internet gaming addiction in the world's most wired country.

The case in March of parents whose infant daughter starved to death while they were playing games on the Internet raised concerns in the country about gaming addiction and calls for the government to act.

Under the plan announced this week by the culture ministry, computer game companies were asked to put in place voluntary restrictions by the end of the year to cut down the hours children play games.

South Korea, which has one of the world's highest rates of high-speed broadband connections in homes, is also saturated with PC rooms where gamers spend long hours in front of computer monitors.

Internet gaming would be denied from midnight to about 8 a.m. for school-aged children. Several game providers have already imposed restrictions.

"Users can select a special server that gives them incentives for cutting down on their gaming time," said Kim Kun-woo of NC Soft, a leading South Korean game company.

To enforce the measures, the government has called on game providers to monitor the national identity numbers of users, which include their ages, while allowing parents to see if their IDs were used by children playing after hours.

"The policy provides a way for parents to supervise their children's game playing," said Lee Young-ah, an official at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The ministry has also asked game companies to find ways to cap the hours that adults play.