Smartphone addiction a growing problem among South Korean youth

Almost 20 percent of South Korean children and teens are addicted to smartphones and suffer anxiety, insomnia and depression when without them, officials say. The South Korean government says the smartphone-penetration rate among children and teenagers tripled last year and many of them spend more than 7 hours a day on the devices, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. South Koreans are among the world's biggest consumers of technology and the country has reached a cellphone penetration rate of more than 100 percent, meaning some people carry more than one handset. The smartphone addiction rate among teenagers was 18 percent, twice that of the rate for adults, a government survey found. "The situation is already serious," said Hwang Tae-hee, an official at South Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality & Family. Other tech-savvy countries such as Japan and Taiwan are experiencing similar problems. The preoccupation with smartphones is damaging interpersonal skills, one expert said. "Students today are very bad at reading facial expressions," Setsuko Tamura, a professor of applied psychology at Tokyo Seitoku University, said. "When you spend more time texting people instead of talking to them, you don't learn how to read non-verbal language." The South Korean government said it plans to provide nationwide counseling programs for children and teenagers by the end of the year and train teachers how to deal with students with smartphone addictions.