By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-04-02 11:19:48 | Updated at 2025-04-03 10:58:28
23 hours ago
Hong Kong authorities have ruled out imposing legal limits on children’s screen time, despite more than 60 per cent of the city’s students exceeding two hours of usage, according to the Department of Health.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau on Wednesday said it was inappropriate to impose a hard indicator on the length of screen time given that electronic devices had become an important learning tool.
“The use of legislation to limit the use of electronic screen products needs to consider many factors, such as public acceptance, ways of regulation, methods of law enforcement and its feasibility,” Lo told lawmakers in a Legislative Council meeting.
The Department of Health revealed its student health report for the 2023-24 academic year, which found that more than 60 per cent of all participants in a self-reported poll, including 80 per cent of secondary school students and 43 per cent of elementary pupils, had at least two hours of screen usage.
“The situation is quite worrying,” said Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, a consultant in community medicine at the Centre of Health Protection.
“Recent studies overseas showed the amount of screen time may be related to the seriousness of myopia, and the increasing screen time may worsen the state of vision of Hong Kong children … this is a worldwide phenomenon.”
