8 ms·

South Korea's smartphone addiction camps

80 points by reddotX 7y ago

qiqitori 7y ago
Don't get it. Why not get a real computer?
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  Korean apartments are tiny
  - jbarham 7y ago
    Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang, which are ubiquitous and cheap
    - astonex 7y ago
      They have to kick out kids after 10pm however
      - lasagnaphil 7y ago
        Korean here. The law is widely regarded as a failure, as there were lots of backlashes from both the game industry and the citizens. (PC gaming is one of the most important aspects of Korean culture, so regulating it is widely regarded as a dick move, except for old people and parents with kids to send colleges to.) It was announced in June that the government will gradually abolish this law. Also, the law wasn’t enforced that well. There are still some PC bangs which don’t kick out teenagers late at night, and those fun-hungry high schoolers will always find a loophole for these kinds of stuff. (For example, the law is impossible to enforce in software, because even with online multiplayer games you can easily make a overseas account through a VPN.)
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- AYBABTME 7y ago
  The problem is that phones are with us all the time, computers aren't. As such, they're more prone to be taken out of a pocket, or from a bed table, etc. They're more accessible, so they're more easy to abuse. When you're waiting at a train stop, it's easy to pull out your phone and browse. Not so your laptop. Similarly, when you're waiting for your order to arrive at a restaurant, you pull your phone... Quickly, it becomes a reflex to just pull out your phone when there's nothing going on, or when you want to change your mind... then it ends up being when you're in bed about to sleep but want to look something that crossed your mind... I'm stating the obvious, but your question is kind of weird. It's kind of asking "Don't get it. Why not smoke weed" on an article about alcoholism.
  - donkeyd 7y ago
    > Quickly, it becomes a reflex to just pull out your phone when there's nothing going on, or when you want to change your mind... This is me, unfortunately. I need to get rid of this urge, but it's s damn hard. I'm glad I banned phones from the bedroom, I really seem to be able to fall asleep much better, most times. But in all the other scenarios, that's me, pulling out my phone to have something to do. I can't even remember what I used to do while waiting for stuff. Then again, I've had smart phones for the past 13 years, so that's pretty much all of my grown up life.
    - beefield 7y ago
      Buy a dumbphone with wifi hotspot. Remove sim card from smartphone and use it only over wifi. Consider which apps you actually can use on web browser on your computer instead of your smartphone. Leave smartphone at the office/home/car unless you really need smartphone with you.
      - lazylizard 7y ago
        Google authenticator...
        donkeyd 7y ago
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  They are poor - in relative terms.
- 1023bytes 7y ago
  "What's a computer?"
pcr910303 7y ago
As a South Korean, I'm obviously biased, but is this not true in other countries? Do other countries not have teenagers addicted to smartphones? I can't find a reason why the 'South Korean' part is relevant to the article... can anyone clarify?
- AYBABTME 7y ago
  It's true everywhere, but I think South Korea is taking action, versus other places where it's been slowly acknowledged as a growing issue, without much in term of response (aside from things like Apple's screen usage tracking). Also there's the bit in the article stating that the problem is more grave in South Korea due to prior societal context. That's subjective, obviously. I guess you can read it three ways: (1) look how SK is taking this issue seriously, maybe other places should; (2) look at another example of SK's competitive culture exacerbating an issue¹; (3) a combination of both. ¹: Not my opinion/don't have an informed opinion on this.
  - pcr910303 7y ago
    > South Korea is taking action, versus other places where it's been slowly acknowledged as a growing issue > Also there's the bit in the article stating that the problem is more grave in South Korea due to prior societal context. Hmm, definitely not have thought of this way. Thanks for your guidance. :-) Due to the features like Screen Time, I thought that addiction to smartphones were well known in other places too. > look at another example of SK's competitive culture exacerbating an issue¹ Hmm, is South Korea's competitive culture well known? That's a bit surprising.
    - AYBABTME 7y ago
      I'm aware of it because I'm interested in the country, but I don't know if it's well known. It pops up in articles about South Korea all the time, which in turn show up on HN quite often, so maybe.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      SK competitiveness is second only to Japan and somewhat ahead of Chinese. USA also is internally competitive though not as openly. (And the growing inequality is stifling it more and more.)
AYBABTME 7y ago
Something I find interesting about these articles and South Korea (SK) is that unlike many other places, I feel that historically, SK has taken all sort of problems head on and eventually conquered them. I think things like this are probably more prone to manifest themselves early in SK, but also are more likely to get addressed and resolved there. * * * A (audio) book I really enjoyed about this country, if you want to learn more: https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_p=6a5ce8e4-798e-4a64-8bc5-71dcf66d673f&pf_rd_r=DWE2FR8X24JFP68KXMH0&ref=a_lib_c4_libItem_154144888X https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_...
- starpilot 7y ago
  There have been some other articles in this vein about SK. These are all HN headlines: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax | South Koreans lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in South Korea, and the Suicide of South Korea | Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers | South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to stop overwork | South Korean President Impeached (!) | South Korea scrambles to avoid going the way of Japan | South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste | South Korean government to switch to Linux (!) | South Korea's program of higher wages and taxes – so far, it's not working | Harried South Koreans pamper pets instead of having kids One gets the impression of a neurotic, radically changing country that is trying to course correct with varying levels of success. Other than the overworking and business corruption, which I think are exceptionally bad in the country, most of these do seem like issues that other developed nations will face (or are facing) in the near future.
  - elamje 7y ago
    Maybe SK is tackling these issues head on, but from my experience international news tend to always come with a <country> tag in the title, whereas local news comes with a <state or city> tag more accurately. It might be that some countries are doing federal level moves, but I have a feeling we get a foreigner perception bias as news we see from those countries get the country name appended to the title, even if it is a more local or regional phenomena. In the US for instance there might be similar things to the above, but it would read: New York considers cryptocurrency tax | Californians lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in Denver, and the Suicide of Denver But when it comes from a foreign news source, it might contain the country name in the title, rather! Again, not sure about SK here, but I’ve been curious how much our perceptions are biased by foreign news reaching us in a way that makes the reader think the entire country is doing something great, or terrible.
Shaddox 7y ago
Isn't this just addressing the symptoms, but not the problem itself? The camp seems to be showing kids that they can do other things than play with their phones, but I don't think outside the premises of the camp they can find people to share similar activities with.
GistNoesis 7y ago
They are getting it backwards. They are trying to cure the humans, whereas it is a technology problem. We are in the transition phase towards an inversion of control. The machines have already taken the control but they are still learning how to use their flesh-processor. The smartphone is still making mistakes like over-tiring its human and sending him into unproductive loops. When the smartphone will reach adulthood, these childish behaviors will naturally stop because having a well domesticated human in good health is much more rewarding.
- dawg- 7y ago
  This is an interesting and creative fantasy but I don't really see how it reflects reality. Unless you think smartphones are powered by esoteric magic and forget that humans build and design every single little function of them, down to the circuit board.
  - GistNoesis 7y ago
    At a high level of abstraction, most of the addictive software is driven by various metrics, getting feedback from the users, and rewards from the environment. Most human cogs building the machine are just following the flow of the algorithm. Those algorithmic entities have a mind of their own. Humans also have to teach them the right incentives, like you would with a toddler, for them to grow into adults we could live along. In the meantime, until the human-attention resource is properly managed, humans should probably aim the carrot and the stick at the ones in control. There is a lot of space to get creative here while embracing progress : -Instead of punishing the weak human for being addicted, they could for example tax the junk-soft companies in proportion of time spent by addicted users. -They can also entice the entertainment industry by rewarding them if the students get good grades and sleep well, or make them share the burden if it leads to unemployment, or health expenses. -Instead of sponsoring non-scaling rehab camps for potentially 30% of the youth population, they could compete by sponsoring game studios that create more positive games/software/distractions.
    - dawg- 7y ago
spodek 7y ago
Perhaps the people who should go to camps are those creating and designing software and hardware specifically to keep people coming back to their screens and staying there. In this case camps to learn that while they can design them that way, not to. Or to help create legislation to change the rules of the market to remove the Nash equilibrium of maximum craving and addiction.
dawg- 7y ago
Part of the problem in Western countries is that we seem to struggle with the language around smartphone addiction. We all know at some level that compulsive use of mobile internet is a widespread problem for a lot of people. But, for starters, the word "addiction" sometimes feels like a bad fit. Nobody is stealing copper pipes to pay for more mobile data, at least not that I have heard of. So I understand why there is resistance to the term. And I understand why someone who struggles with, for example, heroin addiction would object to smartphones being thrown in the same category as their disease. But are there people dropping out of school and losing jobs because their compulsive mobile internet use took so much of their attention that they couldn't function normally? There are probably no empirical studies on this yet. But observationally, I would not be surprised if it was a trend. If you spend enough time on reddit you will (ironically enough) find communities full of people discussing exactly how this kind of thing happened to them. And you will find people who spent $500 binging on lootboxes in a mobile game and now they need to figure out how to pay their rent this month.... When I am driving down the highway and pass a slow car, and see the driver watching netflix while driving 70 miles an hour, and when I see this happen on a regular basis, it is hard to call it anything other than an addiction. Surely that person knows, rationally, that they should not be watching TV while driving a car. But they do this self-harming behavior anyway because they can't stop - that's what addiction looks like. I wonder if South Korea has any different language or cultural values around compulsive smartphone use that has made it easier for them to address the issue?What do we need to do in order to help people talk about this and describe their experience with this growing trend?
- zeronone 7y ago
  As there is virtually no drugs in South Korea or other east asian countries, addiction do have a different perception/connotation. Nonetheless, the word "addiction/중독" is used to refer smartphone addiction.
  - noarchy 7y ago
    There is definitely alcohol being consumed in South Korea. Anecdotally, I've seen some hard-drinking South Koreans. In terms of real data, the country ranks pretty highly in overall drinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...

80 points by reddotX 7y ago

qiqitori 7y ago

Don't get it. Why not get a real computer?

NikolaeVarius 7y ago
Korean apartments are tiny
- jbarham 7y ago
  Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_bang, which are ubiquitous and cheap
  - astonex 7y ago
    They have to kick out kids after 10pm however
    - lasagnaphil 7y ago
      Korean here. The law is widely regarded as a failure, as there were lots of backlashes from both the game industry and the citizens. (PC gaming is one of the most important aspects of Korean culture, so regulating it is widely regarded as a dick move, except for old people and parents with kids to send colleges to.) It was announced in June that the government will gradually abolish this law. Also, the law wasn’t enforced that well. There are still some PC bangs which don’t kick out teenagers late at night, and those fun-hungry high schoolers will always find a loophole for these kinds of stuff. (For example, the law is impossible to enforce in software, because even with online multiplayer games you can easily make a overseas account through a VPN.)
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
AYBABTME 7y ago
The problem is that phones are with us all the time, computers aren't. As such, they're more prone to be taken out of a pocket, or from a bed table, etc. They're more accessible, so they're more easy to abuse. When you're waiting at a train stop, it's easy to pull out your phone and browse. Not so your laptop. Similarly, when you're waiting for your order to arrive at a restaurant, you pull your phone... Quickly, it becomes a reflex to just pull out your phone when there's nothing going on, or when you want to change your mind... then it ends up being when you're in bed about to sleep but want to look something that crossed your mind... I'm stating the obvious, but your question is kind of weird. It's kind of asking "Don't get it. Why not smoke weed" on an article about alcoholism.
- donkeyd 7y ago
  > Quickly, it becomes a reflex to just pull out your phone when there's nothing going on, or when you want to change your mind... This is me, unfortunately. I need to get rid of this urge, but it's s damn hard. I'm glad I banned phones from the bedroom, I really seem to be able to fall asleep much better, most times. But in all the other scenarios, that's me, pulling out my phone to have something to do. I can't even remember what I used to do while waiting for stuff. Then again, I've had smart phones for the past 13 years, so that's pretty much all of my grown up life.
  - beefield 7y ago
    Buy a dumbphone with wifi hotspot. Remove sim card from smartphone and use it only over wifi. Consider which apps you actually can use on web browser on your computer instead of your smartphone. Leave smartphone at the office/home/car unless you really need smartphone with you.
    - lazylizard 7y ago
      Google authenticator...
      - donkeyd 7y ago
C1sc0cat 7y ago
They are poor - in relative terms.
1023bytes 7y ago
"What's a computer?"

pcr910303 7y ago

As a South Korean, I'm obviously biased, but is this not true in other countries? Do other countries not have teenagers addicted to smartphones? I can't find a reason why the 'South Korean' part is relevant to the article... can anyone clarify?

AYBABTME 7y ago
It's true everywhere, but I think South Korea is taking action, versus other places where it's been slowly acknowledged as a growing issue, without much in term of response (aside from things like Apple's screen usage tracking). Also there's the bit in the article stating that the problem is more grave in South Korea due to prior societal context. That's subjective, obviously. I guess you can read it three ways: (1) look how SK is taking this issue seriously, maybe other places should; (2) look at another example of SK's competitive culture exacerbating an issue¹; (3) a combination of both. ¹: Not my opinion/don't have an informed opinion on this.
- pcr910303 7y ago
  > South Korea is taking action, versus other places where it's been slowly acknowledged as a growing issue > Also there's the bit in the article stating that the problem is more grave in South Korea due to prior societal context. Hmm, definitely not have thought of this way. Thanks for your guidance. :-) Due to the features like Screen Time, I thought that addiction to smartphones were well known in other places too. > look at another example of SK's competitive culture exacerbating an issue¹ Hmm, is South Korea's competitive culture well known? That's a bit surprising.
  - AYBABTME 7y ago
    I'm aware of it because I'm interested in the country, but I don't know if it's well known. It pops up in articles about South Korea all the time, which in turn show up on HN quite often, so maybe.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    SK competitiveness is second only to Japan and somewhat ahead of Chinese. USA also is internally competitive though not as openly. (And the growing inequality is stifling it more and more.)

AYBABTME 7y ago

Something I find interesting about these articles and South Korea (SK) is that unlike many other places, I feel that historically, SK has taken all sort of problems head on and eventually conquered them. I think things like this are probably more prone to manifest themselves early in SK, but also are more likely to get addressed and resolved there. * * * A (audio) book I really enjoyed about this country, if you want to learn more: https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_p=6a5ce8e4-798e-4a64-8bc5-71dcf66d673f&pf_rd_r=DWE2FR8X24JFP68KXMH0&ref=a_lib_c4_libItem_154144888X https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_...

starpilot 7y ago
There have been some other articles in this vein about SK. These are all HN headlines: South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax | South Koreans lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in South Korea, and the Suicide of South Korea | Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers | South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to stop overwork | South Korean President Impeached (!) | South Korea scrambles to avoid going the way of Japan | South Korea now recycles 95% of its food waste | South Korean government to switch to Linux (!) | South Korea's program of higher wages and taxes – so far, it's not working | Harried South Koreans pamper pets instead of having kids One gets the impression of a neurotic, radically changing country that is trying to course correct with varying levels of success. Other than the overworking and business corruption, which I think are exceptionally bad in the country, most of these do seem like issues that other developed nations will face (or are facing) in the near future.
- elamje 7y ago
  Maybe SK is tackling these issues head on, but from my experience international news tend to always come with a <country> tag in the title, whereas local news comes with a <state or city> tag more accurately. It might be that some countries are doing federal level moves, but I have a feeling we get a foreigner perception bias as news we see from those countries get the country name appended to the title, even if it is a more local or regional phenomena. In the US for instance there might be similar things to the above, but it would read: New York considers cryptocurrency tax | Californians lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in Denver, and the Suicide of Denver But when it comes from a foreign news source, it might contain the country name in the title, rather! Again, not sure about SK here, but I’ve been curious how much our perceptions are biased by foreign news reaching us in a way that makes the reader think the entire country is doing something great, or terrible.

Shaddox 7y ago

Isn't this just addressing the symptoms, but not the problem itself? The camp seems to be showing kids that they can do other things than play with their phones, but I don't think outside the premises of the camp they can find people to share similar activities with.

GistNoesis 7y ago

They are getting it backwards. They are trying to cure the humans, whereas it is a technology problem. We are in the transition phase towards an inversion of control. The machines have already taken the control but they are still learning how to use their flesh-processor. The smartphone is still making mistakes like over-tiring its human and sending him into unproductive loops. When the smartphone will reach adulthood, these childish behaviors will naturally stop because having a well domesticated human in good health is much more rewarding.

dawg- 7y ago
This is an interesting and creative fantasy but I don't really see how it reflects reality. Unless you think smartphones are powered by esoteric magic and forget that humans build and design every single little function of them, down to the circuit board.
- GistNoesis 7y ago
  At a high level of abstraction, most of the addictive software is driven by various metrics, getting feedback from the users, and rewards from the environment. Most human cogs building the machine are just following the flow of the algorithm. Those algorithmic entities have a mind of their own. Humans also have to teach them the right incentives, like you would with a toddler, for them to grow into adults we could live along. In the meantime, until the human-attention resource is properly managed, humans should probably aim the carrot and the stick at the ones in control. There is a lot of space to get creative here while embracing progress : -Instead of punishing the weak human for being addicted, they could for example tax the junk-soft companies in proportion of time spent by addicted users. -They can also entice the entertainment industry by rewarding them if the students get good grades and sleep well, or make them share the burden if it leads to unemployment, or health expenses. -Instead of sponsoring non-scaling rehab camps for potentially 30% of the youth population, they could compete by sponsoring game studios that create more positive games/software/distractions.
  - dawg- 7y ago

spodek 7y ago

Perhaps the people who should go to camps are those creating and designing software and hardware specifically to keep people coming back to their screens and staying there. In this case camps to learn that while they can design them that way, not to. Or to help create legislation to change the rules of the market to remove the Nash equilibrium of maximum craving and addiction.

dawg- 7y ago

Part of the problem in Western countries is that we seem to struggle with the language around smartphone addiction. We all know at some level that compulsive use of mobile internet is a widespread problem for a lot of people. But, for starters, the word "addiction" sometimes feels like a bad fit. Nobody is stealing copper pipes to pay for more mobile data, at least not that I have heard of. So I understand why there is resistance to the term. And I understand why someone who struggles with, for example, heroin addiction would object to smartphones being thrown in the same category as their disease. But are there people dropping out of school and losing jobs because their compulsive mobile internet use took so much of their attention that they couldn't function normally? There are probably no empirical studies on this yet. But observationally, I would not be surprised if it was a trend. If you spend enough time on reddit you will (ironically enough) find communities full of people discussing exactly how this kind of thing happened to them. And you will find people who spent $500 binging on lootboxes in a mobile game and now they need to figure out how to pay their rent this month.... When I am driving down the highway and pass a slow car, and see the driver watching netflix while driving 70 miles an hour, and when I see this happen on a regular basis, it is hard to call it anything other than an addiction. Surely that person knows, rationally, that they should not be watching TV while driving a car. But they do this self-harming behavior anyway because they can't stop - that's what addiction looks like. I wonder if South Korea has any different language or cultural values around compulsive smartphone use that has made it easier for them to address the issue?What do we need to do in order to help people talk about this and describe their experience with this growing trend?

zeronone 7y ago
As there is virtually no drugs in South Korea or other east asian countries, addiction do have a different perception/connotation. Nonetheless, the word "addiction/중독" is used to refer smartphone addiction.
- noarchy 7y ago
  There is definitely alcohol being consumed in South Korea. Anecdotally, I've seen some hard-drinking South Koreans. In terms of real data, the country ranks pretty highly in overall drinking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...