Family and state intervention in youth gaming behaviours and effects on family relationships

Wang, Dajun (2026) Family and state intervention in youth gaming behaviours and effects on family relationships. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Starting in September 2021, the Chinese government introduced an anti addiction policy for young people using mobile games aiming to prevent the youth from spending more time and money on mobile games and expecting them to invest more energy in studying and extracurricular activities (https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-09/01/content_5634661.htm). The policy strictly restricts youths to only play mobile games from 8 pm to 9 pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, stating that relevant schools and parent-caregivers (PCRs) should cooperate with the government’s policies.

However, there has not yet been a clear study exploring the understanding of the policy among youth and PCRs during the implementation of the policy, as well as their views and opinions regarding it. Based on the above situation, I raised several research questions:

(i) What are the problems, if any, of young people's online mobile gaming behaviours and parental and state interventions in China?
(ii) What are the reasons for problems, if any and how are family relationships affected?
(iii) What are the potential solutions, if any are required, to promote better family relationships and an appropriate level of intervention in young people's gaming?

The research questions were developed to investigate the reasons why young people play mobile games and to examine the perspectives of both youth and PCRs. The aim was to identify ways to balance gaming time and healthy family relationships and understand opinions from both PCRs and youth to find the best way to balance the time length of youth playing mobile games and family relationship.

Family Function Theory (Epstein et al., 1978) was used to investigate how Chinese families maintain family relationships with the emergence of youth mobile gaming on Family and state intervention in youth gaming behaviours and its effects on family relationships six aspects: behaviour control, problem solving, communication, role, power dynamics, affective involvement and responsiveness. Additionally, both gender of youth and PCRs will be considered to understand stereotypical and / or counter-stereotypical patterns in gaming behaviour, family functioning, etc. The relationship between gender and psychological traits is best understood through a biosocial interactionist lens, which acknowledges modest between-group differences but emphasises vast individual variability within genders. While analyses reveal small average differences in traits like assertiveness or agreeableness (Costa et al., 2001) and in certain attitudes such as social dominance orientation (Pratto et al., 1994), these group means are poor predictors of any individual's attitudes or behaviours.

According to the Panopticon penitentiary by Jeremy Bentham (1785) on fragmental surveillance, Foucault's (1995) understanding of the Panopticon theory, refers that surveillance makes youth pay more attention to self-restraint because such surveillance is not full-time surveillance, which refers to and this form of surveillance encourages young people to remain constantly aware of potential monitoring. To avoid intentional or unintentional surveillance or monitoring coming at any time. When a young person wants to explore content on the Internet, it is necessary to consider whether their PCRs will see their browsing history and whether this content is appropriate in the eyes of their guardians. The self-restraint enhanced by this fragmented monitoring will gradually become automated and even become self-monitoring. Self-monitoring can allow youth to detect whether their performance is adequate or not and modify their actions if they detect that they are not effective for hardworking (Panadero and Alonso-Tapia, 2013).

In this thesis, I used Foucault’s (1995) Panopticon Theory to find out how Chinese youth currently face the surveillance of PCRs and government policies and what actions they will take after learning about these aspects. I will also discuss a new theory, called Anti-Panopticon, which means youth will become aware of their PCRs' surveillance and will behave as their PCRs expect, but they will eventually relax their vigilance and be discovered by their PCRs, which will affect family relationships. Anti-Panopticon Theory is mainly discussed how family relationships can be affected if the PCRs lack of the understanding on policy, the knowledge of rights, current situation about mobile games in the aspects of online safety, cyberbullying, an educational tool and gaming Family and state intervention in youth gaming behaviours and its effects on family relationships design. With the difference of Hawthorne Effect, Anti-Panopticon theory further emphasis the situation about the opinion changing, it will be further discussed in Chapter 6.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General); H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies & Social Policy
• Supervisor's Name: Wong, Professor Mark and Hand, Dr. Christopher
• Date of Award: 2026
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2026-86183
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Aug 2026 10:01
• Last Modified: 14 Aug 2026 10:28
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.86183
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/86183

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