Text / Wang Yuling

In recent years, with the popularity of smart phones, people’s “online life” has become increasingly rich. In order to protect the physical and mental health development of teenagers, China has piloted the youth anti addiction software system on the short video platform. During the two sessions of the National People’s Congress in 2022, Zhongxin Jingwei learned that Ke Yunfeng, deputy to the National People’s Congress and chairman of Da Shenlin, brought a proposal to establish a short video “anti addiction” system for the elderly.

Ke Yunfeng, deputy to the National People’s Congress and chairman of Da Shen Lin

Long time short tiktok mobile phone is mobile. The short video content is fashionable, front edge and visual. It is popular with people. Long time short immersion experience has made some people unable to extricate themselves. In recent years, with the popularity of smart phones, the elderly have been increasing their mobile phone applications, listening to books, playing chess, playing cards, watching news, especially the use of flick, Kwai, etc. All kinds of small videos have made many old people obsessed. It is urgent to prevent the elderly from indulging in short video and standardize the content of short video. “ Ke Yunfeng said.

Ke Yunfeng said that now some elderly people are also “obsessed” with short video software, which may cause some harm to the elderly.

He pointed out that indulging in short videos is harmful to the health of the elderly, affects the vision of the elderly, and leads to an increase in the incidence of neck, shoulder and lumbar diseases. At the same time, addiction to short videos will cause more elderly people to have more complications, or more complex and rapid onset, which will also have a great impact on public medical financial expenditure and social burden in the future.

In addition, according to the data of the public opinion data center of the people’s network, online rumors, false advertising and online fraud are the risks often encountered by the elderly on the Internet, while health product fraud, online MLM and illegal fund-raising are the network traps that the elderly fall into repeatedly.

Ke Yunfeng believes that in front of technology, the elderly will only be more vulnerable than the young. When short videos gradually reduce the threshold for the elderly to access the Internet, they open the door of the new world and the unprecedented impact of this chaotic world.

Ke Yunfeng put forward three suggestions for the elderly to “prevent addiction”. First of all, he suggested that we should correctly understand and use the new network media. At the same time, the government, society and short video platforms also need to assume their respective responsibilities.

Secondly, Ke Yunfeng said that at present, several mainstream short video platforms do not have a “specific mode” for elderly users, and there are basically no special provisions on the restriction of the length of time the elderly spend online and how to protect their rights and refund after being cheated. He suggested that we can follow the youth protection mode, set the elderly mode, help the elderly filter out some content that is vulnerable to deception, set the viewing time, and remind the elderly not to indulge.

Finally, Ke Yunfeng called for the “combination of dredging and blocking” and correct guidance for the elderly. The short video push algorithm needs certain regulation and supervision to prevent the recommendation of the short video platform based on the algorithm from activating the platform traffic and pursuing the maximum interests of many users and platforms. Therefore, the lack of control over the content leads to the emergence of vulgar and other bad content.