Deepening smartphone woes

The smartphone is a great invention and extremely useful in daily life. However, the rapid distribution of the electronic device has brought about an uninvited guest ― smartphone addiction.

The results of a survey released last week by the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education were quite surprising and call for society to act resolutely to tackle the problem.

The survey on about 1.45 million elementary, middle and high school students in Gyeonggi Province, conducted on Sept. 3-21, showed that 66 percent of them had smartphones ― 47.6 percent for elementary school, 75.9 percent for middle school and 77.2 percent for high school students.

It appears that the addiction has already reached a dangerous level with the explosive rise in the number of juvenile smartphone users.

Of those surveyed, 28 percent used the mobile device for more than three hours a day with 10 percent spending more than five hours on it. In 2010, only 5.8 percent of the respondents used smartphones but the ratio surged to 36.2 percent last year and again nearly doubled to 66 percent this year.

A diagnostic survey to measure addiction levels developed by the National Information Society Agency found that 2.2 percent of the respondents were high-risk users who need counseling and treatment. Another 5.7 percent were categorized in the potential risk group.

The percentage of students in the high-risk group was highest among middle school students at 2.81 percent, followed by high school students at 2.42 percent and elementary school pupils at 1.04 percent. Students in the high-risk group showed withdrawal symptoms and difficulty in normal life and had become restless and nervous. Some of them felt helpless if separated from their handset.

We presume that addiction levels in other regions are similar, given that the smartphone craze is a nationwide phenomenon. Most notable is that twice as many students were addicted to smartphones compared to those addicted to the Internet (1.01 percent).

The big question is why little is being done while this problem is spreading like wildfire. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is facing deadlock in its plan to impose a “shutdown system’’ on mobile games as it did on Internet games owing to tough opposition from relevant industries and related ministries.

Despite being belated, there should be remedial measures because leaving the problem untouched will have serious consequences.

The most urgent thing is to ban the use of smartphones at schools, although some allow students to use them and other electronic devices under the student human right ordinance. Of course, such measures as education on the prevention of addiction and stepped-up counseling for students must be taken. But what is needed most is for society to join forces to address the problem in earnest. <The Korea Times>