At what age should a kid ideally get a smartwatch? In China, parents are buying them for children as young as 5. Adults want to be able to call their kids and track their location down to a specific building floor. But that’s not why children are clamoring for the devices, specifically ones made by a company called Xiaotiancai, which translates to Little Genius in English.

The watches, which launched in 2015 and cost up to $330, are a portal into an elaborate world that blends social engagement with relentless competition. Kids can use the watches to buy snacks at local shops, chat and share videos with friends, play games, and, sure, stay in touch with their families. But the main activity is accumulating as many “likes” as possible on their watch’s profile page. On the extreme end, Chinese media outlets have reported on kids who buy bots to juice their numbers, hack the watches to dox their enemies, and sometimes even find romantic partners. According to tech research firm Counterpoint Research, Little Genius accounts for nearly half of global market share for kids’ smartwatches.

Status Games

Over the past decade, Little Genius has found ways to gamify nearly every measurable activity in the life of a child—playing Ping Pong, posting updates, the list goes on. Earning more experience points boosts kids to a higher level, which increases the number of likes they can send to friends. It’s a game of reciprocity—you send me likes, and I’ll return the favor. One 18-year-old recently told Chinese media that she had struggled to make friends until four years ago when a classmate invited her into a Little Genius social circle. She racked up more than 1 million likes and became a mini-celebrity on the platform. She said she met all three of her boyfriends through the watch, two of whom she broke up with because they asked her to send erotic photos.

High like counts have become a sort of status symbol. Some enthusiastic Little Genius users have taken to RedNote (or Xiaohongshu), a prominent Chinese social media app, to hunt for new friends so as to collect more likes and badges. As video tutorials on the app explain, low-level users can only give out five likes a day to any one friend; higher-ranking users can give out 20. Because the watch limits its owner to a total of 150 friends, kids are therefore incentivized to maximize their number of high-level friends. Lower-status kids, in turn, are compelled to engage in competitive antics so they don’t get dumped by higher-ranking friends.

“They feel this sense of camaraderie and community,” said Ivy Yang, founder of New York-based consultancy Wavelet Strategy, who has studied Little Genius. “They have a whole world.” But Yang expressed reservations about the way the watch seems to commodify friendship. “It’s just very transactional,” she adds.

Engagement Hacks

On RedNote/Xiaohongshu, people post videos on circumventing Little Genius’ daily like limits, with titles such as “First in the World! Unlimited Likes on Little Genius New Homepage!” The competitive pressure has also spawned businesses that promise to help kids boost their metrics. Some high-ranking users sell their old accounts. Others sell bots that send likes or offer to help keep accounts active while the owner of a watch is in class.

Get enough likes—say, 800,000—and you become a “big shot” in the Little Genius community. In October, a Chinese media outlet reported that a 17-year-old with more than 2 million likes used her online clout to sell bots and old accounts, earning her more than $8,000 in a year. Though she enjoyed the fame that the smartwatch brought her, she said she left the platform after getting into fights with other Little Genius “big shots” and facing cyberbullying.

In September, a Beijing-based organization called China’s Child Safety Emergency Response warned parents that children with Little Genius watches were at risk of developing dangerous relationships or falling victim to scams. Officials have also raised alarms about these hidden corners of the Little Genius universe. The Chinese government has begun drafting national safety standards for children’s watches, following growing concerns over internet addiction, content unfit for children, and overspending via the watch payment function. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

I talked to one parent who had been reluctant to buy the watch. Lin Hong, a 48-year-old mom in Beijing, worried that her nearsighted daughter, Yuanyuan, would become obsessed with its tiny screen. But once Yuanyuan turned 8, Lin relented and splurged on the device. Lin’s fears quickly materialized.

Yuanyuan loved starting her day by customizing her avatar’s appearance. She regularly sent likes to her friends and made an effort to run and jump rope to earn more points. “She would look for her smartwatch first thing every morning,” Lin said. “It was like adults, actually—they’re all a bit addicted.”

To curb her daughter’s obsession, Lin limited Yuanyuan’s time on the watch. Now she’s noticing that her daughter, who turns 9 soon, chafes at her mother’s digital supervision. “If I call her three times, she’ll finally pick up to say, ‘I’m still out, stop calling. I’m not done playing yet,’ and hang up,” Lin said. “If it’s like this, she probably won’t want to keep wearing the watch for much longer.”

This is an edition ofZeyi YangandLouise Matsakis’Made in China newsletter. Read previous newslettershere.