Young Seoulite Park Min-jun makes sure his phone battery is always fully charged. The last thing he wants is for his phone to die, cutting off his access to KakaoTalk ― the leading South Korean messenger app.
“I always carry an extra battery with me,” the 30-year-old beauty industry worker said. “Also, whenever I see power outlets I charge my phone batteries. I feel really anxious when I don’t.”
Park, who openly admits that he is a “smartphone addict,” is one of 40 million South Koreans who use the devices and some 350 million people who suffer from digital distraction worldwide.
South Korea, one of the world’s most wired countries, is struggling with a growing number of cases of adults and schoolchildren who are addicted to social media and smart devices.
Eighty percent of the nation’s population owned smartphones as of this year, and the number of users doubled to 40 million from 2011 to 2014.
According to research by Saramin, an online recruitment website, 1 in 3 working South Koreans are addicted to the devices, finding themselves unable to focus and getting distracted at work ― which ultimately makes them less productive.
According to neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, such multitasking in the digital age ― social networking, chatting via messenger apps, listening to music while composing an email at work ― deprives human beings of the highest forms of thought their brains are capable of, such as critical thinking, ingenuity and insight.
In fact, these mental functions are only possible when one is undistracted and one’s mind is focused, according to his best-selling book, “The Organized Mind.”
But things are worse for South Korean children. More than 8 percent of the 1.56 million school children surveyed last year by the Gender Ministry turned out to be at high risk of addiction to smartphones, suffering from sleep deprivation and even skipping meals to stay online.
In the age of information overload, the digital gadgets and SNS ― which together generate the culture of multitasking ― are adding another layer to the already disoriented lives of Koreans: busy, overworked, distracted and connected, but lonely.
According to a local body of psychiatrists, smartphone addiction works in the same way as other addictions, such as game addiction or alcoholism.
It consists of repetitive use of something one enjoys doing, over time, and eventually stimulating a reward circuit in the brain.
“Such rewarding experiences generate the release of the brain chemical dopamine, the happy hormone, telling the brain, ‘Do it again and again,’” said psychiatrist Yun Ho-kyung of Korea University Ansan Hospital.
“You are linking whatever you are addicted to ― SNS, alcohol or drugs ― to your pleasurable reward.”
However, Park, whose job requires meeting a lot of people but who spends most of his weekends alone to save money, said his smartphone addiction is a “part of himself” that he does not want to get rid of.
“I am busy earning money and making ends meet,” he said, adding that one needs either time or money to be well-connected off-line.
“And it costs money to hang out with people on weekends. My phone makes my life less lonely. Multitasking helps me forget that I am alone.”
Park said he rarely shares anything on SNS. Rather, his pleasure mostly comes from reading other people’s narcissistic posts on Facebook and “feeling relieved,” he said.
One of the most “pathetic” Facebook posts he remembers is when one of his friends wrote, “I worked out so hard at the gym today. But here I am, eating ramen at night. Aren’t I pathetic?”
“She obviously wasn’t really concerned about her fitness. She just wanted to hear something like, ‘What are you talking about? You are so fit. You don’t even have to work out,’ or ‘Someone (so fit) like you deserves a bowl of ramen.’ You want that kind of support and recognition,” he said.
“Whenever I read such posts I feel relieved because I feel I am not as pathetic as they are. Somehow I haven’t reached that level yet. I am lonely, but I am still content without asking to be pampered on Facebook.”
Kim Jun-ho, another Seoulite in his 30s, is the opposite of Park. Three months ago, he decided to stay away from his smartphone as much as possible. What motivated him was a dreadful movie date.
“I was just starting to see this girl back then. And I think it was our third date,” he said.
“And right before the movie started ― it was dark and everyone was already in their seats ― she got up all of a sudden and started frantically looking for a power outlet in the theater, inconveniencing other people. Turns out, her phone was dead and she was desperate to recharge the battery.”
Kim said it was a huge turnoff, and in some strange way, he felt insulted. She was there to see a movie with him, but charging her phone was more important.
“I don’t know if this makes any sense. But anyway, I stopped seeing her and decided to stay away from smart devices as well. I felt like if I didn’t, I might end up being like her. And I knew I didn’t want that.”
A Seoul-based therapist who did not wish to be named said it is hard for most South Koreans to avoid smartphone addiction and thinks this is partly a result of the country’s notoriously long working hours.
“Spending time with others off-line requires your physical, not virtual, presence,” he said. “I tell my clients to make time for their friends and family, and do things with them off-line, but for a lot of them, it’s nearly impossible. They are always at work. So without smartphones, they’d feel very much isolated.”
Asked when Park feels the loneliest, he said it’s the moment when the number 1, labeled on each and every KakaoTalk message, disappears on his smartphone screen.
The number is automatically erased when the text has been seen by the recipient.
“Sometimes, the 1 disappears but you don’t get a reply,” he said.
“For me, that’s the loneliest feeling.”
By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)
