Mom Live-Streams 9-Year-Old Son Studying... Efficiency Boost vs. Human Rights Violation 'Controversy'

Posted on Streaming Platform
"Learning Effect Is Amazing" Claim

A Chinese woman is causing controversy by 'live streaming' her 9-year-old son studying on the internet. The woman claims that this 'study method' has improved her child's learning efficiency, but some criticize it as a violation of human rights.

On the 16th (local time), Hong Kong media outlet South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported the story of a woman who live-streamed her 9-year-old son doing his homework on Douyin (a Chinese video streaming platform).

A Chinese boy studying under the watchful eyes of 900 unfamiliar netizens [Image source=Douyin capture]

The woman, Ms. Jang, lives in Sichuan Province in southwestern China and has been live streaming her child studying since the first week of this year. On average, about 900 netizens watched her son doing his homework. Ms. Jang claims that this study method has greatly helped improve her son's study efficiency. She told the media, "My son finishes his homework two to three times faster than usual," and added, "He also stopped playing with his eraser while studying since we started streaming. The learning effect was amazing."

There is another advantage to this streaming study method. Thanks to the approximately 900 'anonymous eyes' watching the child, Ms. Jang can focus on her own tasks without needing to supervise her son doing homework. However, Douyin does not allow live streaming by minors. Therefore, Ms. Jang said she only shows her son's hands and his assignments while he studies.

Ms. Jang's study method is said to have inspired other Chinese parents as well. SCMP reported that many parents have already been posting live streams of their children studying on streaming platforms. Some Chinese learning platforms even offer services that assign human supervisors to 'monitor' students doing their homework.

For example, Taobao, China's largest e-commerce site operated by Alibaba, offers a one-on-one study guidance service. The price is 20 yuan for 5 hours, and the human supervisor watches the student studying and scolds them for being "lazy" if they get distracted.

However, some local netizens have expressed concerns about the increasing 'study monitoring services.' Criticisms include comments such as, "Even adult streamers feel pressured by internet broadcasting, so this is too harsh a burden for a 9-year-old child," and "I don't know if children need to be made to study to this extent."