Japan city drafts ordinance to cap smartphone use at 2 hours per day
21 comments
·August 23, 2025autoexec
lll-o-lll
Smartphones are banned at school in Aus, for a strong net positive. Kids still sneak them into toilets and so on (and vapes), but the overwhelming impact has been positive.
Aerroon
How do you know that it has had an overwhelmingly positive impact? Can we, for example, see a marked increase in PISA scores for Australia from after the ban?
Or is this one of those "I hate phones, therefore banning them must be good for kids" things?
x2tyfi
It’s surprising that more schools haven’t done this. I suspect that we’ll look back in 10 years with it being common and ask ourselves what took so long.
JumpCrisscross
> surprising that more schools haven’t done this
We have a depressing state in America where you can predict the parents’ income based on whether their kids’ school bans smartphones.
crooked-v
In the US we've completely given up on stopping school shootings, and parents have instead decided that the better thing to fight for is their children having cell phones so they can hear the child's last words when the school shooting happens.
fuckaj
Ohhh I assumed all countries did that. Like common sense.
Shank
> It would be better to ban the use of smart phones at schools (or at least in classrooms) entirely, pass laws to better protect people's privacy, and pass regulation to restrict the kinds of exploitative practices that are designed to drive up anxiety and addiction to these devices.
Once again, I must reiterate that parents choose the schools their children attend, and that means that they choose the solution. I argue strongly that we, as a society, should not impose arbitrary restrictions on parents and children. If we afford the freedom of letting parents be parents, there is no scientific basis for reallocating smartphone use responsibility to the state.
x2tyfi
All of these seem valid, too, but they don’t need to be mutually exclusive. I’m all for common sense recommendations - even if it only helps a relatively small percentage of families.
I look at it in a similar light to nutritional guidelines.
yieldcrv
Just thinking about a mockable law may keep it in the collective consciousness for more people to independently choose to detox from their phone
MantisShrimp90
Remember, in other countries, especially eastern ones, the recommendation of even your local city means allot. There is a deeper trust of government bodies so this will likely have an impact.
And starting small is probably good, lets the idea iterate before rolling it out wider and this often comes down to making a choice, this city just thought this would be best and I suspect unless this goes horribly wrong it will help
henearkr
Why is there a city doing this?
Isn't it the job of a public health agency? Like, at a national or even international level?
Or of a scientific body?
What legitimacy has an administrative, and often political, structure, to make a non-binding health recommandation (thus, an advice), with a scope limited to the city, even though the matter has nothing to nor specific to this city?
It looks like a political stunt, not something initiated by health specialists.
mrexroad
> "We want the ordinance to provide an opportunity for people to think about how they use smartphones," an official said.
henearkr
Why aren't they issuing ordinances for people to switch to electric cars?
To learn foreign languages?
To study sciences?
I really don't know what to think.
Like, if they think that the bottleneck, the motivation source, to get people to improve their lifestyle, is to have an ordinance issued, then they really need to study the basics of psychology and sociology. And of public communication.
Aerroon
I really hope that any city I live in will not try to use city ordinances for feel good things.
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memonkey
Not the first time Japan has done something like this[1] and I honestly welcome it. It's not a strict rule, gives people flexibility to at least talk about it and disagree with little consequence. Another severely online commenter mentions protecting peoples privacy and exploitative practices but we're wayyy beyond those types of conversations. Limiting online-ness in a gentle way that's not gonna piss off a bunch of people and get the feels for it seems to be a very Japanese thing to do.
https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/17744?phrase=Onaga%...
elzbardico
Too late.
Recommendations are well and good, but I can't see them having much if any impact on what people do. It would be better to ban the use of smart phones at schools (or at least in classrooms) entirely, pass laws to better protect people's privacy, and pass regulation to restrict the kinds of exploitative practices that are designed to drive up anxiety and addiction to these devices. Especially those that target children.