A town in Japan is to urge all residents to restrict their smartphone use to two hours a day in an attempt to tackle online addiction and sleep deprivation.
Officials in Toyoake, Aichi prefecture, said the measure would target not only children but also adults, amid growing concern about the physical and psychological toll excessive smartphone use is taking on people of all ages.
The move aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues … including sleep problems,” the mayor, Masafumi Koki said recently.
The Toyoake municipal assembly began debating the non-binding ordinance this week ahead of a vote scheduled for late next month. If the draft passes it will go into effect in October. The measure will not, however, carry penalties for those who exceed the two-hour daily limit.
The draft urges primary school students – those aged six to 12 – and younger children to avoid using smartphones or tablets after 9pm, while teenagers and adults are encouraged to put their devices to one side after 10pm.
The proposal, the first of its kind to apply to all residents, triggered a backlash on social media. Some users condemned it as an attack on individual freedom, while other said the time limit was simply unworkable.
“I understand their intention, but the two-hour limit is impossible,” one user wrote on X. Another said: “Two hours isn’t even enough to read a book or watch a movie (on my smartphone).”
In response, Koki said the time limit was not mandatory and acknowledged that smartphones were “useful and indispensable in daily life”. But he added: “I hope it will be an opportunity for families to think about and discuss the time they spend on smartphones as well as the time of day the devices are used.”
The proposal has not gone down well with many of Toyoake’s 69,000 residents. Officials received 83 phone calls and 44 emails over a four-day period after the announcement, 80% of which were critical of the measure, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
Officials say the proposal was designed to address behavioural problems associated with excessive smartphone use, including truancy among children who can’t bear to leave their phones at home when they go to school.
Koki said there was also anecdotal evidence that adults in the town were glued to their phones when they should be sleeping or spending time with their families.
Toyoake’s initiative reflects growing concern about the negative health impact, especially on children, of hours spent hunched over smartphones and tablets.
In 2020, a region in western Japan passed an ordinance – also non-binding – limiting children to an hour a day of gaming during the week, rising to 90 minutes during the school holidays.
Young Japanese spend an average of just over five hours a day online on weekdays, according to a survey released this year by the Children and Families Agency.
