Cooperation needed to curb game addiction

Systems designed to curb Chinese young people's obsession with online gaming require consensus between children and their parents to be effective, experts and tech engineers said.

A government survey of more than 6,200 families in Guangdong province found 23 percent of children aged 3 to 6 spend at least 30 minutes online every day, according to a report released at the Guangdong Youth Cybersecurity Forum in September.

More than 60 percent of 7-year-olds have downloaded games to their smartphones or tablets. At the age of 12, about 88 percent of children use QQ messenger and 70 percent use WeChat, the report said.