Kids, adults, and even students who don’t live in the city are told to limit their use of smartphones and other devices.

On Monday, the city council of Toyoake, Aichi Prefecture, passed a municipal ordinance to limit the amount of time per day that residents and others within the city should be allowed to use their smartphones. The measure passed with 12 out of 19 participating council members voting in favor of its resolution, and comes one month after the initiative was announced to the public as being under consideration.

The ordinance officially establishes two hours per day as the guideline for the maximum amount of leisure use per day for “smartphones and the like,” which the resolution defines as “devices such as smartphones, tablets, video game consoles, and personal computers that can connect to the Internet and use apps for viewing or listening to information, playing games, and accessing social media.”

Politicians have, for generations, pointed to new/recently popularized pieces of technology as dangers that are going to rot children’s brains, but what’s especially unusual about the Toyoake ordinance is that it isn’t just targeting minors. The ordinance is meant to apply to all residents of the city, from kids to full-grown adults. In a particularly ambitious attempt to extend its reach, the ordinance’s wording says it is also meant to be applied to children under the age of 18 who live in a different city but commute to schools in Toyoake, thus attempting to regulate the at-home behavior of kids who live outside the community the Toyoake city council is supposed to have jurisdiction over.

The ordinance includes certain exemptions, though, as it places no limits whatsoever on how long a person is allowed to use their phone or other devices for study, work, or “household chores.”

▼ So apparently time spent Googling “how clean toilet big curry rice dinner no regrets” won’t count against your government-approved two-hour of smartphone leisure allowance.

While the ordinance is now an official part of the city’s governmental policy, it isn’t an outright ban. In its current form, it contains no penalties for non-compliance, and the ordinance also says that the city “is not intending to monitor residents” to see if they’re staying within their allotted two hours a day. “The ‘two hours’ is not a fixed amount, but, at most, a guideline,” said Masafumi Koki, Toyoake’s 56-year-old mayor. “We are not trying to reject the idea of smartphones themselves, or completely deny people from enjoying video games or social media. We just want to signal that we want people to avoid cutting into their sleeping time by using [their devices] too much.”

▼ Video of the city council session in which the ordinance was passed

Koki went on to add that “We are not saying ‘It’s wrong to go over two hours,’ so we would like families to reconsider their individual usages and make decisions regarding them,” and the ordinance contains an accompanying resolution also passed by the Toyoake city council acknowledging a “respect for residents’ freedom and diversity.”

However, if you’re scratching your head over how “We’re not saying it’s bad to go over two hours” is supposed to mesh with passing an official city ordinance that says “You shouldn’t go over two hours,” you’re not the only one having trouble following the city council’s logic, as reactions to the above video of the resolution being passed have been overwhelmingly negative, with comments including:

“Doesn’t the city council have anything more important to be doing?”
“I’m so jealous of their awesome jobs: getting paid to sit around and have pointless discussions.”
“They seem to have a ton of free time on their hands. I’d like them to pass an ordinance showing how much they’re all getting paid, on an hourly basis, to do this sort of thing.”
“Just wasting time and tax money on this crap.”
“You pass a behavior-restricting ordinance while talking about ‘respecting residents’ freedom and diversity? You all really have trouble using words, don’t you?”
“But no ordinance to limit time spent watching TV, huh?”
“I wonder if the council members who voted for this are actually going to follow the ordinance themselves.”
“This is kind of terrifying. It’s not the sort of behavior that government should be trying to control.”
“Doesn’t this count as a violation of human rights?”
“Is their plan to start with no penalties, then add them in after the ordinance itself has already been passed?”

Regarding the last comment, it’s unlikely that Toyoake has either the surveillance infrastructure or the constitutional justification to implement fines, jail time, or other penalties for those who ignore the ordinance, especially in its current form which includes references to the two hours per day as a “guideline.” However, with Japan being a culture with widespread respect for law and order, failure to comply with a city ordinance could be used as a method of disparaging one’s character and morals, with an associated societal pressure to conform to the rules if one wants to have a role in fields such as civil service or education.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong about cautioning people about the dangers of sleep deprivation or overuse of technology, the ordinance is, at its core, an attempt to substitute the council’s judgement for residents’ own regarding time management. It seems, though, that many people think the council itself could use some pointers on the best, most constructive ways to use its time, such as figuring out ways to deal with rising prices, stagnant wages, and other more pressing issues affecting people in Japan.

Source: TBS News Dig via Livedoor News via Hachima Kiko, NHK, Toyoake City (1, 2), YouTube/CBCニュース【CBCテレビ公式】
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