Impact of COVID-19 on Adolescents' Smartphone Addiction in South Korea

This Social Work in Public Health study, co-authored by Hae Kook Lee, surveyed 360 Korean teenagers aged 15 to 18 about their smartphone use before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors report that individual-level factors — including depressive symptoms, weaker self-control, and having been a target of cyberbullying — were associated with higher smartphone-addiction-associated scores, alongside family-level factors like household economic strain and lower parental involvement, and school-level factors like grades. Among teens whose screen time rose during the pandemic specifically, economic circumstances, academic performance, and grade level were also associated with higher risk. The authors frame pandemic-era school closures and isolation as a context that amplified pre-existing risk factors rather than creating an entirely new problem. TechKids Foundation cites this as evidence that pandemic disruption is associated with, not the sole cause of, elevated smartphone-related risk in Korean adolescents.

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