Korea becoming a nation of phone junkies

Almost a third of Korean teenaged mobile users are defined as 'addicts'

South Korean teenagers are so attached to their mobile phones that some researchers are classifying them as 'addicts', according to recent reports.

Almost a third are obsessed with their phones to the point that they sometimes imagine hearing them ringing when they are not.

Forty per cent send over 1,000 text messages every month, and a similar percentage of students say they habitually send or receive text messages or play games during classes.

These and other findings are contained in a survey of 1,100 mobile phone users, aged 14 to 19, which was carried out last month by Korea's Far East University on behalf of the country's Ministry of Communication. 

According to the survey, a fifth refused to be parted from their phones even while bathing.

Mobile games, played by 40 per cent of Koreans, are also causing concern. One 22 year-old university student told a local newspaper that he played games on his phone three to four hours a day and that during classes he and many of his classmates sat at the back of the class surreptitiously playing.

Another said that he kept one phone for calls, and one for games. A 27-year-old office worker interviewed said that he sneaked into the office toilets to play mobile games four or five times a day.

A third of the survey respondents reported auditory hallucinations, for example 'hearing' their phone ringing when it is not. "Even though I set my cellphone to vibrate when calls come in, I sometimes hear my phone ringing," a female high-school student told the JoongAng Daily. 

Young people in South Korea are among the most wired in the world. Almost 80 per cent of the country's 48 million people have mobile phones, according to Jong In Yang, an analyst with Korea Investment and Securities. 

Among teenagers, owning a mobile phone is seen as essential to having a normal social life; mobile device ownership is heavily concentrated in the hands of the under-40s, earlier research has shown.

Korea's mobile phone service providers will generate approximately $18bn in earnings this year, according to Hyundai Securities. 

Although about 150,000 new users are still being added every month, the youth market is close to saturation. As a result mobile phone service operators are trying to lure customers with low-cost games, messaging and other services, and trying to increase revenues from existing users by encouraging them to use their phones more.

A separate, larger survey earlier this year classified more than a third of South Korean high-school students as mobile phone addicts. A quarter of middle-school students also qualified. That survey, by Korean research organisation Marketing Insights, questioned 9,800 mobile phone users. 

The so-called addicts' behaviour included feelings of insecurity or irritation when they were unable to use their phones, and a compulsion to leave their phones switched on in cinemas and similar environments. The behaviour tended to be about 20 per cent more common in women than in men, the survey found.

Educational authorities in Seoul now hand out leaflets to students of all ages explaining how to use mobile phones sensibly and politely.

High school student Kim So-hee leads a student group campaigning for one voluntary phone free day each month.

"Now that I am less obsessed with mobile phones, I can spend more time talking with my mother face-to-face and writing letters by hand to my friends instead of sending messages," So-hee said.