In 80's Japan the Yakuza fort tooth and nail over the video game industry, both for control of company's and talented developers. Sega was widely know in the Japanese game industry to be controlled by yakuza and are rumoured to still be so. Their internal business practices and treatment of staff are known to mirror those Yakuza run companies and a couple of years ago the CEO of Sega Sammys mansion was shot up by the Yakuza for unknown reasons. Videogames are considered the same level of sophisticated media as porn in Japanese society so the fact the Yakuza got in early and funded and then took control of a lot of the early pioneers is not really surprising.

Well, if you're a professor / researcher / grad student, this would be an interesting study to do. Though good luck finding a couple hundred parents with kids with zero gaming experience willing to expose them to 9+ hrs/week for a year and an ethics board to approve the study, though.

Young people have lots of things to do assuming governments actively invest in afterschool programs / extracurricular activities, which is smart because it helps keep teens from doing dumb shit. I know East Asian kids have it tough because drugs are harder to get than in Western countries, but there are no shortage of extracurricular clubs to do, provided by the school, local library, or another third party, regardless of budget in any developed country:

- Musical arts (band, choirs, orchestra)
- Theatrical arts (drama, musicals, etc.)
- Painting and arts
- Media club (photography, video)
- Cooking
- Science and tech (robotics, math, physics, etc.)
- Chess or board games
- Debate
- Student Council / Model UN
- Sewing
- Gardening
- Literature club
- Volunteering or community clubs
- Culture and language clubs
- Marital arts
- Sports

The Chinese Government is not in any position to be lecturing anyone about drugs.

They allow and tacitly support the production and smuggling of fentanyl into the USA via the Mexican border, despite both the US and Mexican governments asking them to stop doing so.

The Obama and Trump Administrations have gotten nowhere on that front. Biden is probably not going to get anywhere either.

Couldn't agree more. But where would the slave labour come from? (I'm looking at you, America).

They learned it from the British. (See:Opium wars).

They could be. A few years ago articles/books coming out about games, brain development, and tests of using games to reduce pain and getting less drugs to handle the issues. Anything could be an addiction, so...

https://www.healthy-holistic-living.com/screen-time-is-like-heroin-for-kids/

https://www.theedadvocate.org/how-screens-turn-kids-into-digital-addicts/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/video-games-may-help-relieve-pain/

No and I think we should not get distracted from the important things on this:
-The reduction of our liberties.
-The bad joke the stock market is.

Naaaa, I don't think it's opium, it's more like cocaine!

Replace the words "video games" with "social media" in your thread title and you are onto something.

Although at this point in time, I remember something about patents that have been filed by gaming companies that also try to exploit human psychology for so called engagement and money...

There is no secret that cames CAN cause addiction. Just like ANY type of activity. The question is how you determine how much playing games is too much.

P.S. It's funny, that previously communists called Christianity a "spiritual opium".

"are video games modern opium?"

No-ho.

@OP: Are bad grammar modern?

Ridiculing the grammar of someone for whom English is a second language? Really?

China has a ....not great history with opium. Without getting too political I'm not surprised they said this. Both are amusement and distraction from other pursuits. In China the government seems to have a lot of ideas about what their people should be pursuing so a few hours a week gaming strikes them as deviating from the plan. As I said I don't want this to get too political but Western society seems to place more focus on the individual. In Amsterdam you can try lots of drugs if that's what YOU want to do. I get the impression China doesn't ask what you want to do, but rather what they expect you to be doing. Gaming is probably not it. They got burned badly on imported opium addiction two centuries ago. Watching workers get less productive while enjoying an imported (and let's be fair...semi-addictive) pastime will raise some ire.

I would have thought that "Are bad grammar modern?" is meaningful enough to express that English also to me is a second language... Don't tell me that was correct?!?!

yes they do , so they overdose and kill themselves