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The story
A report claiming that children’s internet use has hit ’10+ hours a day’ and is ‘ruining their lives’ sparked a heated debate on 5ch’s News Express+ board over whether such long usage is actually a problem. According to a 2025 survey cited in the article, elementary schoolers now spend an average of about 4 hours online, while high schoolers exceed 6.5 hours — and while other countries are moving to impose age limits on social media, Japan remains largely hesitant to do the same. The thread saw a clash between defenders arguing that ‘kids in the Showa era also spent hours glued to TV and games’ and critics warning that ’10+ hours is abnormal for a kid who still has to go to school,’ with plenty of posts also veering into the loneliness and internet dependence of elderly users.
‘My body won’t listen to me’ — Children’s internet addiction reaches crisis levels… 10+ hours a day is ‘ruining lives.’ As other countries push SNS age limits, will reluctant Japan finally change? | NEWSjp – Kyodo News
Published 2026/09/17 10:40:00
Updated 2026/09/08 19:02:15
Source: news.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
There was no social media, right?
No LINE, no internet?
What was life even like?
You'd submit stuff to Champ Road (a biker/delinquent culture magazine).
Only fix is going back to the days of 'packet death' (huge phone bills from per-byte data charges) lol
Re: #26
Back when MMOs were at their peak, tons of people dropped out of school, quit their jobs, or became shut-ins.
Before holidays or long weekends, people would go two days straight without sleep just gaming.
Smartphones are even more addictive than PCs since you don't need to be stuck in one spot to use them.
What does a kid even need to broadcast?
Restrict by intelligence, not age.
Restrict by intelligence, not age.
How would you feel if someone told you, 'Based on your intelligence, you get 30 minutes a day'?
Re: #3
Well, at least if they're online at home, they won't drown in the sea or a river.
lol
They say 'I like being alone!'
but really they're just using the internet to fill the emptiness of their loneliness.
Well, rambling on here is basically the same as social media anyway lol
Both old and young are internet-dependent.
As for 'liking being alone,' the causation is backwards.
It's because the internet is so fulfilling
that people can casually say they like being alone.
Because there's nothing else to do
spent plenty of time on TV, games, manga, and the like too.
That's only possible if you're unemployed.
I think 10 hours a day is abnormal for a kid who still has school.
Re: #18
Between studying and everything else, 10 hours on a hobby isn't realistic.
You'd have to be unemployed!
'Did you watch that show?' 'Did you play that game?' 'Did you read that manga?' — those were the things that got conversations with friends going.
Smartphones don't give you that shared experience.
At least back then kids weren't stealing their parents' credit cards to spend on gacha just to feel strong in some mobile game — that's still better.
Plus, buy-to-play games actually made you use your head a bit.
Going by the article, I got hooked in middle school but didn't actually break 10 hours a day until college,
so depending on your class schedule that's within the realm of possibility.
Looking at the graph in the article, the 2025 average internet usage time is
about 4 hours for elementary schoolers and over 6.5 hours for high schoolers… well, that does seem like a lot.
Guess it's doable if you're in college.
I was pretty hooked on games back then too, but I also had a part-time job, so I never averaged 10 hours…
Re: #33
Well, there's only one Grandmaster like that in the whole world…
The moment you look something up on your phone while studying, that's game over.
And once you think 'let me just ask an AI,' you end up using it for everything else too.
Minors should just be banned from having smartphones altogether.
There are serious kids who actually use smartphone apps to study, though.
They're pretty handy for things like memorizing vocabulary.
It really depends on how you use it.
That's exactly it — trending topics and videos on social media,
or playing multiplayer games together —
that's what kids today are having fun with.
If anything, not having a smartphone gets you left out of the group.
So the topic is social media after all.
How dumb.
That's not liking being alone —
that's just someone who can't build real relationships with actual people
but is secretly starved for company.
Exactly. People who are fundamentally bad at human relationships.
Thanks to how fulfilling the internet has become,
those people can now live comfortably alone
without having to push themselves.
Calling it 'internet' addiction when all they're doing is bickering endlessly on some app with the same classmates they see every day at school
is kind of a stretch.
It's creepy, like some gross little kid getting excited over an email from Mommy.
It's a bunch of pathetic, lonely old men clustered together on 5ch,
so what's even fun about talking to people like that?
Normal people, especially younger ones, naturally stay away.
Even I only stick to this news board
because it's convenient for skimming headlines
and seeing how a bunch of people react to them.
But when people like that get old, or sick, or injured,
and their daily life becomes difficult,
the internet won't be enough to fill the emptiness of loneliness anymore,
and they'll probably plunge straight into despair.
It's hard for the internet generation to even feel lonely.
It's completely different from the pre-internet era.
Even alone, things like AI can fill
that gap in your heart.
That only works because you're currently healthy and young.
Once your body or your daily life becomes restricted,
the anxiety and fear of loneliness will hit you all at once.
Thinking that the internet's fake connections
will keep soothing that emptiness even then
is way too naive.
I read that elderly suicide is actually more common among those living with family
than among those living alone.
I mean, kids and grandkids don't really want to deal with a frail, gloomy old person either.
Being lonely within a group is brutal.
Well, at least living alone means you avoid ending up as a decomposing corpse nobody finds.
if a kid's going to play a game, don't let them stop until they beat it completely.
Force them to keep going even if they say they're tired or sleepy.
There are games that take over 1,000 hours to fully clear —
are you actually prepared to be a responsible parent through that?
Why don't you try staying awake without sleep until you clear Spectral Tower II yourself first.
With pay-to-win gacha games, there's no 'full clear' — the closest thing is the servers shutting down once enough gambling-addicted whales stop paying.
Anyone using it that long is genuinely sick.
Bet this guy manspreads on the train
No, leaving it be is dangerous — you've gotta finish it off properly
I don't think of myself as smart, but I don't use social media at all.
It's a waste of time, and I don't get what's fun about putting your own info and photos out on the internet.
On the flip side, isn't 5ch itself full of exactly the kind of pathetic old men
who'd make you ask, 'who's even interested in you'?
Background and Key Points of This Topic
According to the article, as of 2025 children’s daily internet use averages about 4 hours for elementary schoolers and exceeds 6.5 hours for high schoolers, and while other countries are moving to impose age limits on social media use, negative attitudes toward regulation remain entrenched in Japan. What split opinion in the thread was how to judge these usage figures. Some defended it, arguing that ‘kids in the Showa era were just as absorbed in TV and games,’ while others pointed out that back then such media sparked conversations with friends, whereas smartphone content differs from person to person and rarely creates that same shared experience. It’s worth noting that posts flatly labeling long usage ‘abnormal’ or ‘sick’ ended up tying the discussion to the loneliness and internet dependence of elderly users, pulling the conversation away from the original topic of children.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread ‘Children’s internet addiction reaches crisis levels… 10+ hours a day is ‘ruining lives.’ As other countries push SNS age limits, will reluctant Japan finally change?‘.
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