Japanese City Tries to Curb Phone Use With New Law

Japan's Toyoake is trying to get its citizen off its screens by legislating it into reality. An ordinance that went into effect on Wednesday tasks the city's 68,000 residents with keeping recreational screen time (meaning excluding work and school use) to under two hours per day. The Japan Times adds that the ordinance also calls for elementary school kids to power down their devices by 9pm and for junior high school students and others under 18 to put theirs away by 10pm.

It's a somewhat toothless ordinance in that Toyoake doesn't plan to track usage, enforce the limit, or impose any penalties on rule breakers. But as the New York Times notes, "there is heavy social pressure to follow official guidelines" in Japan, and the city's leaders hope their ordinance will nudge people to be on their phones less.

The New York Times spoke to one mother who said she'd likely use the ruling to try to get her 5-year-old off his screen, but much of the other feedback was negative, including from one city lawmaker who voted against the ordinance, which she called "total nonsense" and none of the government's business. The move isn't totally unprecedented, notes the New York Times—Kagawa prefecture tried a similar limit for young gamers in 2020; it sparked a lawsuit that ultimately failed. The results of a study into that limit's effectiveness haven't been released.