In this blog post, we will look at the changes smartphones have brought to our lives and the hidden problems of addiction, especially their impact on children and adolescents.
Smartphones become part of everyday life
The world is changing rapidly in the wake of the information revolution. These changes are clearly evident in the field of mobile communications. In the early 1990s, pagers were all the rage, and a few years later, in the late 1990s, the first commercial mobile phones became commonplace. About 10 years later, in the 2010s, old mobile phones disappeared and smartphones spread rapidly, with the majority of people using them. According to statistics on wireless communication service subscribers from the Ministry of Science and ICT, as of the end of April 2021, there were approximately 71.27 million mobile phone subscriptions and 52.59 million smartphone subscriptions in Korea. This exceeds the total population of 51.7 million registered with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety at the time, suggesting that each citizen owns more than one smartphone.
In addition, according to a survey by Korea Gallup, as of July 2023, the smartphone usage rate among adults in Korea reached 97%. This shows that smartphones have become an essential tool in everyday life. This trend is expected to continue, and the penetration rate of smartphones is expected to increase further.
There are many things you can do with a smartphone. Leisure, love, and business are all connected to smartphones. You can enjoy various content such as games, listening to music, watching videos, and texting with friends, providing unlimited fun for users. For this reason, it has become a common sight to see most people using their smartphones when riding the subway. Thanks to this, even people who have to use public transportation regularly to travel distances of more than an hour can now spend that time in a useful and enjoyable way. In addition, smartphones have many other positive functions, such as the rapid dissemination of information and convenient remote communication.
Advantages and Impact of Smartphones
Smartphones are undoubtedly a technological innovation of humankind, and there is no doubt that they have brought us one step closer to a more advanced lifestyle. However, the problem is that while mobile phones have become ‘smart,’ the people who use them are becoming less and less ‘smart.’ Smartphones are like candy to the mouth, entertaining users and highly addictive. Due to smartphone addiction, people are gradually forgetting more sophisticated pleasures and happiness, such as friendships and exercise. And most people have long forgotten the joy of reading.
Smartphone addiction is more serious among children than adults. According to statistics from the Korea Information Society Agency, the rate of smartphone addiction among children is higher than that among adults. As a result, unlike children in the past who used to go out to the playground to play with their friends or kick a ball, children today are more accustomed to playing with their smartphones indoors. This change is causing serious problems in children’s emotions and education.
Impact on children and adolescents
When studying, they want to use their smartphones, which reduces their concentration, and prolonged exposure to stimulating images on smartphones can impair their ability to control and suppress their desires, leading to impulse control disorders. Because they are accustomed to only stimulating things, they become insensitive to reality and easily bored by quiet and static things. In addition, smartphone addiction also affects school life. According to Lee Jae-cheol’s ‘The Impact of Smartphone Addiction in Children on School Life: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Mental Health,’ the more severe a child’s smartphone addiction is, the more negative the impact on their school life and mental health.
Furthermore, according to a paper, the more addicted children are to smartphones, the worse their relationship with their parents becomes, and the lower their self-esteem. According to another paper, students who use smartphones less often have higher academic achievement than those who use them frequently.
Another problem is that smartphones deprive people of opportunities and time for reflection. Smartphones are so entertaining that they leave no room for quiet contemplation, and since anything you want to know can be found instantly, people today have few opportunities for reflection and curiosity. In order to expand one’s thinking and come up with new ideas, one must enrich one’s own thinking, but smartphones are like teachers who give answers in advance and immediately satisfy curiosity, and because people can use smartphones during time that should be spent reflecting, there is no time for reflection. Education in Korea is strict and focused on efficiency, so this is an even bigger problem for Korean children. According to a paper titled ‘The Impact of Smartphone Addiction on Career Barriers and Career Indecision among Adolescents,’ the more addicted adolescents are to smartphones, the more likely they are to be undecided about their career path. This can be seen as a result of smartphones depriving children of opportunities for reflection.
Solutions to Smartphone Addiction
These serious problems arise from smartphone addiction. Therefore, parents should not take smartphone addiction lightly when raising their children. However, many parents do not consider smartphone addiction to be a big problem and use smartphones to appease their children more easily. When children do not listen in public places or need motivation, smartphones have an immediate effect, so parents are greatly tempted to use them. However, this attitude only confuses children. Parents should not give smartphones to their children as rewards, and they should take them away from them immediately. If smartphones are given as rewards, children will think of studying and doing chores as painful tasks that they must endure in order to use their smartphones, and they will stop acting independently.
Another solution is to secure leisure time by reducing the number of excessive after-school classes that children attend. The reason children choose smartphones over playing with their friends is not only because smartphones are fun, but also because they are convenient. They use smartphones because they have little time, such as during breaks at after-school classes, or because they enjoy their leisure time late at night after finishing their homework, and smartphones are less restricted by time and space than going out to play.
Many studies have proven that smartphone addiction is harmful to the mental and educational development of children and adolescents. Therefore, parents must take their children’s smartphone addiction seriously and take appropriate measures. Even if children and adolescents only use smartphones occasionally or for short periods of time, smartphone addiction at a young age can have a huge impact on their lives in the long run, so it is important to recognise that smartphone addiction among children and adolescents is more serious than smartphone addiction among adults. In order to spread this awareness, schools should educate children about smartphone addiction, and broadcasters should educate children and parents about smartphone addiction through influential methods such as public service announcements.
