The city of Toyoake in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture aims to reduce its citizens’ reliance on their phones. In an effort to curb people’s endless scrolling, officials have proposed a limit on nonessential screen time to just two hours a day.
If you’re not working, studying, or doing some housework that necessitates screen time, they like you to put down your phone so you can hang out with your friends and family for the first time in years.
The ordinance would be the first of its kind in Japan. It’s being pitched not as a Gestapo-like boot to the throat, but more of a friendly nudge, using official governmental decrees to implant an idea that no one seems particularly willing to enforce. No fines, no smartphone police. They’re politely asking you to reconsider whether whatever is going on on your phone is really all that important.
Japanese Town Proposes Two-Hour Daily Limit on Phone Use
Mayor Kouki Masafumi insists this isn’t a Big Brother thing. In a quote published by NHK, he said, “People have mistakenly received the impression that the ordinance will bind residents to the two-hour cap,” insisting that his very Big Brother-y-sounding initiative is not Big Brother-y at all. “But the two-hour cap is a guideline to encourage people to reconsider their sleeping hours and other matters such as their relationship with family members.”
Under the draft, children are asked to limit smartphone use to 9 p.m. in elementary school and 10 p.m. in junior high. This echoes a similar 2020 law in Kagawa Prefecture, which attempted to curb children’s gaming to just an hour on weekdays, a move met with both praise and occasional online rage.
The proposal was announced on a Thursday. By the following Monday, the city had received a total of 110 phone calls and emails regarding the proposal, approximately 70 percent of which were in opposition to it.
As long as no one actively tries to enforce this on anyone, the ordinance will be a set of words that take up space somewhere, everyone actively ignoring it, perhaps a few adhering to it just to see what it’s like.
However, the ordinance must first be passed. Should that happen, the screen time curfew will go into effect this October. The citizens of Toyoake need to get their gooning in now before it’s too late and an unenforceable city ordinance makes them feel bad about it.
The post This Town Wants to Cap Phone Use at Two Hours a Day. Here’s Why. appeared first on VICE.
