Teens Hit With Midnight Video Game Curfew

Here's a novel sort of curfew: Teenagers in South Korea will be prevented from staying up all night to play online video games by a 6-hour blackout period. It's being called the "Midnight Shutdown," but the culture ministry's decree actually gives underage gamers the choice of midnight to 6am, 1 to 7am, or 2 to 8am. The goal is to fight video game addiction and insure that kids get their beauty sleep.

The country is also testing a scheme in which internet connection speeds will slow to a crawl for underage gamers who log too many consecutive hours, the Korea Herald reports. It's being tried out on four hugely popular role-playing games and will be extended to 19 if it's successful.
(More South Korea stories.)