Screentime: the mind killer! ...or is it chess?

Are Korean kids spending too much time on their screens?

No.

But Google says so! Actually, Google says that Taiwan passed a law limiting screen time. And that South Koreans labeled as screen-addicted actually spend 90 minutes in a public park specifically to not look at screens. And that Hong Kong toddlers have electronic devices.

I mean, sure - there are definitely a few Korean kids out there with their eyeballs pasted to a screen for way too many hours of the day and night. However, that some kids go overboard is not really the news. The real cause for concern if there were one would be that South Korea ranks number 1 in teens suffering from internet addiction

Side note: anyone willing to do a little digging and find out how the government ran that survey? All I could find on the English web was that the government ran the survey, but not who they asked, how they asked them, etc. I ask because surveys can be pretty accurate or borderline useless.

However, this is a little bit unsurprising when you consider that South Korea is one of the most wired nations in the world, and that is a good thing. What we have here is a failure to separate two related but ultimately distinct facts.

Fact 1: South Korea is highly connected to the internet, and this is good.

The internet is not inherently good or bad. It is a conduit of communication, and that means a much faster transfer of knowledge. It is similar to a road in many ways - that road can be used to transport people back and forth from their homes to their jobs, where they manufacture clothes for orphans, or it can be used by criminals to drive back and forth from their homes to their evil lairs. And, of course, most of what actually happens is in between.

However, I would argue that overall, it is very much a positive that people of all ages have access to information. Want to know how to cook Thai noodles? Fix your computer? Back in the 1990's all of these meant calling a professional or hoping your local library had a book that could help you through it. Today, especially in Seoul, South Korea? Grab the nearest device connected to the internet, and you probably have your answer in under 10 minutes.

However, if you have more people using the internet, you will also naturally have more people addicted to it.

Fact 2: some kids get addicted to the internet. This is bad, but we're doing something about it.

The fact that South Korea is highly aware of its internet addiction problems means that the country is willing to meet this issue head on. The fact that teens are proactively self-regulating is even better.

When I was a kid, television and video games were the bane of my generation. "Why don't you kids read any more?" my parents asked.

Turns out that hundreds of years before, adults were complaining about kids back then too. Their complaint? Too many books. And chess. Ohhh, that terrible wrecker of souls!