May.3,2007

Korean Children 'Obsessed' with Text Messaging

Kim Hyun-suk is a sophomore in high school and a so-called thumb jockey: he is constantly sending text messages to friends regardless of time and place. Hyun-suk sends so many text messages that it broke the buttons on his phone and gave him carpal tunnel syndrome -- the painful swelling and inflammation of the fingers and wrists associated with excessive typing that increasingly affects excessive users of mobile phones.
According to figures released by the National Statistical Office on Wednesday, teenagers between 15 and 19 on average sent a whopping 60.1 text messages per day, a slight increase from 59.5 in 2005. "Our children are seriously addicted to cell phones,” an official with the civic group Parent's Union on Net said. Some 46 percent of middle and high school students send text messages even in class, according to research by the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion.

A man sends an SMS at a subway station in downtown Seoul.

Young adults aged between 20 and 24 also send more text messages, with the average number of SMS increasing from 22.6 in 2005 to 30.9 in 2006. The ratio of cell phone users is 85.3 percent for teenagers and 97.3 percent for young adults. According to the NSO figures, teenagers used computers for 14 hours per week and young adults for 19.3 hours. Although the figure decreased by 1.5 hours and 1.3 hours respectively from 2005, they still spend more than two hours a day on the computer.

Teenagers watch TV for 12.8 hours a week and young adults for 13.8 hours. The average time for reading newspapers was 0.7 and 1.3 hours.

Children who spend too much time on the phone, computer and TV often become isolated from their family. Among teenagers, 60.8 percent said they are satisfied with their relationship with parents, a drop from 67.8 percent in 2002. When it comes to relationship with siblings, satisfaction shrank from 64.7 percent in 2002 to 59.2 percent in 2006.

It took on average one year for young people between 15 and 29 to land a job after graduation or dropping out of school, up from 10 months in 2005. The proportion of young people who did not land a job until three years later stood at 10.2 percent, up from 8.4 two years ago, meaning one out of 10 young people has been unemployed for three years or more. The proportion of young people who found a job within one year after graduation decreased by 2.7 percentage points since 2005 to 74.2 percent.

Source: Digital Chosun Ilbo