Student are practicing drawing in this photo provided by Seoul Webtoon Academy.
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Webtoon artists in South Korea are far more exposed to the risk of mental illness as they struggle with an excessive workload, a survey showed Wednesday.
Dr. Min Ji-hee at Hanyang University Hospital conducted a survey of 320 webtoon artists making more than 500,000 won (US$390) in monthly income and conducted intensive interviews with 15 people, which showed that 28.7 percent far exceeded the qualification of depression, easily surpassing the country’s lifetime incidence of depression (7.7 percent).
Another 17.4 percent thought about committing suicide, which was also higher than the national average (10.5 percent) and 4.1 percent had attempted suicide, easily surpassing the national average of 1.7 percent.
Close to one third of the respondents were constantly struggling with mental fatigue while a similar share were struggling with physical fatigue.
Webtoon artists have to draw an excessive number of cuts for each episode, resulting in a massive workload.
Each episode normally requires 68.3 cuts, exceeding the 52 cuts that the artists believe is the optimal number.
They work an average of 9.9 hours a day or 11.8 hours the day before the submission deadline.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
