Korean Teens Getting Help for Internet Addiction
In February, a 15-year-old boy visited the I Will Center, a facility in northern Seoul established to help teenagers suffering from Internet addiction, asking for help.
Kang Hyun-kyung of the Korea Times writes that his mother said the boy felt restless, insecure, and irritable when she tried to make him stop playing online games. She said her son had not slept and eaten properly for three consecutive days and nights due to his compulsive Internet use.
The boy thought eating regular meals was a waste of time. He ate only instant noodles to save time so that he could spend more time playing games with his cyberspace buddies. His preoccupation with the Internet also brought serious financial consequences to the family, as he spent millions of won (thousands of dollars) on “game items” using his parents’ credit cards without their knowledge.
“This boy was one of the extreme cases displaying the disorder that I have met here,” said Kim Hyun-jung, chief psychiatrist of the center. Kim, along with six other full-time psychiatrists, offers counseling services and coaching programs to teen Internet addicts at the center, which is run by the Seoul metropolitan government.
Last December alone, they provided 1,718 teenagers suffering from Internet addiction with coaching and counseling services via phone calls or face-to-face interviews.
Kim said the influence of the Internet on secondary school students in Korea is deeper and more widespread than parents may imagine.
“Last year, our survey of 600 students attending four middle schools in northern Seoul found that five out of 30 students showed symptoms of pathological use of the Internet,'” Kim said. “I have no doubt that those teenagers' compulsive use of the Internet can lead to juvenile delinquency. Our survey showed that the more they used the Internet, the more they became violent and aggressive.''
Kimberly Young, founder and director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery based in Bradford, Pennsylvania, said pathological Internet use is a source of many problems.
"Internet addiction causes problems like divorce, job loss, academic failure, physical or medical problems and social isolation," Young said in an e-mail interview with the Korea Times. She defined Internet addiction as a pathological preoccupation with Internet use.
Young, who developed a 20-item questionnaire called the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) to measure the levels of Internet addiction, said the biggest problem caused by the disorder is social isolation.
"We are not communicating and children especially are learning terrible habits. They text instead of talk, they email and chat and Facebook instead of talk. They are not learning teamwork and basic communication skills," she said.
In 1996, Young presented the first research on Internet addiction at the American Psychological Association's annual conference held in Toronto, Canada, in her paper, titled "Internet Addiction: The Emergence of New Disorder."
In 1998, Young first suggested that the compulsive use of the Internet is most akin to Pathological Gambling as listed under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
A Ministry of Public Administration and Security survey conducted in 2008 said that 77 percent of Koreans use the Internet. The rate of teenager Internet user is much higher than this average.
A Korea Internet and Security Agency survey in 2008 found that 99.9 percent of teenagers in Korea access the Internet and that 85.5 percent of them log on to cyberspace every day.
The I Will Center survey found that teenage Internet addicts tend to show signs of violent and aggressive behavior more than those who are not compulsive users.
“We found students who stayed online for a long time showed an increasing pattern of aggressive behavior,'' said Kim.
The survey of Korean teens also found that Internet addicts showed few symptoms of social isolation, unlike the finding in studies by U.S. researchers.
“I think children suffering from Internet addiction here are not socially isolated, mainly because they play the game with their online buddies. They also communicate with their cyberspace friends in chat rooms,'' Kim said. “Their interactions with their buddies online probably helped them develop their interpersonal skills.''
Children staying online for long hours have often led to parent-child conflict. Some parents attempt to remove computers from their children's bedrooms or block them from accessing the Internet to help them focus on their academic performance.
“Some teenagers turn rebellious when facing this situation. And some leave home to find a place where they can access the Internet without disturbance, such as PC game rooms. Some teenagers even stop going to school, playing games all day long,'' said Kim. “To continue to play game at such places, these children need money. They borrow money from their friends or some steal money. Hence the juvenile delinquency comes.''
Young said cases in the United States are different. “Crime has not been studied in association to Internet use,'' she said. “The only issue in the United States is pedophiles online. Sex offenders use the Internet to seek out children very easily.''
Last year, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security found in a survey that nine out of 100 Internet users show signs of pathological use of the Internet. The ministry conducted the survey on 5,500 people aged between nine and 39 from all parts of the country.
Interviewers sat down with them for face-to-face interviews and asked them to answer a 40-point questionnaire to measure levels of Internet addiction.
The questionnaire is called K-IAT, and was developed by Seoul National University professors. The test is based on Young's IAT and recreated questions to measure more accurately levels of Koreans' Internet addiction.
The ministry estimated that the social cost of this addiction in Korea is approximately 7.8 trillion won to 10 trillion won.
Asked if Korea has more Internet addicts, compared with other countries, Young said she cannot confirm this, saying that “prevalence of the issue is poorly studied.''
The ministry has fought the new disorder with countermeasures since 2002. Recently, it said that previous measures were not effective as the rate of those addicted to the Internet has risen over the past years. Last week, the ministry unveiled a three-year plan to combat the new disorder.
Asked if there is a role that the government can play in helping those who suffer from Internet addiction, Young said perhaps in Korea. “But not in the United States. The U.S. government does not support healthcare in this area currently,'' she said.
