In order to cope with the meteoric increase in cases of myopia among young people, China has announced its desire to limit the time spent on online video games.
China’s eyesight is failing. In an attempt to see more clearly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced this week his desire to limit the practice of online video games, reports Reuters. The Chinese Minister of Education unveiled the main lines on Thursday: limiting the number of online games authorized on the market and restricting playing time, thanks in particular to a control system based on age.
The announced objective is to reduce the rate of myopia in children and adolescents by 5% per year from 2023. A news that did not fail to make the financial markets react: the Chinese giant Tencent has seen its stock market fall by 5%, or 20 billion dollars overnight. It must be said that the company publishes the online role-playing game Honor of Kings, a real social phenomenon in China, in the crosshairs of the authorities.
The disease of the century
The rise of myopia is a worldwide phenomenon, but it is reaching astonishing proportions in the countries of East Asia. At the end of their school career, between 80 and 90% of Far Eastern schoolchildren have difficulty seeing from afar. In Western countries, the myopia rate of young people is more around 30 to 50%. In France, a quarter of young people aged 16 to 25 are affected.
Myopia occurs when the eye, too long, is not able to accommodate enough to obtain clear vision at a distance. Accommodative myopia is already embarrassing in itself, but high myopia (beyond 6 diopter loss, i.e. 10 to 20% of cases) constitutes a real handicap: it is not compensated for by wearing glasses and continues to evolve, with a risk of serious complications: retinal detachment, AMD, glaucoma…
Prioritize outdoor activities
It was long believed that myopia was mainly of genetic origin, but the epidemic of recent decades tends to focus research on the importance of environmental factors. Activities requiring near vision, such as reading and video games, are often highlighted, although the epidemiological data are thin. Another popular line of research calls into question the lack of outdoor activities: sunlight would promote the growth of the eye, via the production of dopamine.
In real life, these two factors tend to be closely related: the more time you spend in front of screens, the less sunlight you are exposed to. Hence the importance of outdoor activities, which are increasingly emphasized in Asian education programs. In Singapore, children are encouraged to limit computer time to half an hour without a break, and to play outside during recess. A strategy that is bearing fruit, since the country would have succeeded to stem the epidemic.
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