This file photo shows school kids looking at their smartphones. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 31 (Korea Bizwire) — The lifting of social distancing rules eliminated the necessity for online classrooms, but elementary and middle school students are increasingly developing a dependency on smartphones, a government survey showed Tuesday.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family conducted a survey involving 1.28 million students from elementary (fourth grade), middle, and high school (first grade).
The survey revealed that 18.1 percent of students were heavily addicted to the internet or smartphones, indicating a 0.4 percentage point decrease compared to the previous year.
Among the student groups, middle schoolers exhibited the highest prevalence of internet and smartphone addiction at 20.6 percent, followed by high school students at 17.1 percent, and elementary school students at 16.3 percent.
The issue of internet/smartphone addiction is becoming increasingly prevalent among younger students.
The number of middle school students addicted to the internet or smartphones rose by 4,388 compared to the previous year, resulting in a growth in their proportion from 20.5 percent to 20.6 percent.
As for elementary school students, the number of addicted students decreased from 71,262 to 65,127. However, due to a smaller number of participants in this year’s study, their share of the total increased from 16 percent to 16.3 percent.
This year’s inaugural study on juvenile online gambling in the country revealed that out of 877,660 students (middle and high school freshmen), 3.3 percent were heavily addicted.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
