According to an Education Ministry report summarized in the Korea Times recently, two out of every one hundred primary and secondary schoolers are seen as addicted to the internet, with the total number of such students reaching 100,000. The addiction is reported to be much more common among elementary school students. Symptoms of students categorized as addicts include using the Internet for more than four hours a day, having problems with personal relationships and difficulties in study and daily life. The report also claimed they experience withdrawal symptoms when not using the Internet. According to the Internet Addiction Counseling Center under the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, the center gave counseling to 73,000 students last year. ``Parents take their children to the center. Students themselves usually deny they are Internet addicts, saying they have no problem using the Internet,'' Koh Young-sam, head of the center, said.
Showing posts with label internet addiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label internet addiction. Show all posts
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Two Percent of Primary and Secondary Students are Internet Addicts
According to an Education Ministry report summarized in the Korea Times recently, two out of every one hundred primary and secondary schoolers are seen as addicted to the internet, with the total number of such students reaching 100,000. The addiction is reported to be much more common among elementary school students. Symptoms of students categorized as addicts include using the Internet for more than four hours a day, having problems with personal relationships and difficulties in study and daily life. The report also claimed they experience withdrawal symptoms when not using the Internet. According to the Internet Addiction Counseling Center under the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion, the center gave counseling to 73,000 students last year. ``Parents take their children to the center. Students themselves usually deny they are Internet addicts, saying they have no problem using the Internet,'' Koh Young-sam, head of the center, said.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
In Korea, A Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession
An article in the New York Times on "A Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession" has caught the imagination of readers and blogs around the globe. This is an excellent example of the sort of new attention Korea is garnering based on the universal availability here of broadband internet and its social effects, especially on the younger generations. Based on my personal perusal of the news coverage (including blogs) generated by this article, I offer the following observations.
- Many of the accounts are a bit ahistorical, implying that the Korean government only began paying attention to the problem of internet addiction in 2002.
- They illustrate a sort of "internet effect" on news, created by the reality that the internet itself seemse to be a primary source for many of the stories. The story builds upon itself.
- Quite a few of the stories challenge the notion of "internet addiction" or "web obsession" and point out the lack of evidence for it in the New York Times story.
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