High school students take a state-wide exam at a school in eastern Seoul in June 2025. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
Around 40 percent of Korean adolescents are now at risk of smartphone addiction, according to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's 2026 youth statistics on Thursday.
A total of 43 percent of Koreans aged 10 to 19 fall into the at-risk category in a survey conducted from September to November last year, the Family Ministry said Thursday, for whom smartphone use has begun to interfere with daily life, up 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier.
Middle schoolers were found to be particularly vulnerable, with 47.6 percent falling into the at-risk category, the highest rate among all school levels.
Internet usage time also increased. Adolescents were also found to spend an average of 27.3 hours a week online last year, up 7.3 hours from a year earlier.
Instant messaging platforms, including KakaoTalk and Telegram, ranked as the most widely used internet services among them. Some 86.4 percent of elementary school students used the services, compared with 99.3 percent of middle school students and 99.8 percent of high school students.
Fewer students, however, reported exposure to adult content in recent years, according to the ministry’s survey from 2024, the latest available data.
The share of students who reported watching adult video content nearly halved over two years, falling to 26.5 percent in 2024 from 47.5 percent two years earlier. The main channels through which youths accessed adult-rated content were streaming platforms at 17 percent, followed by internet broadcasts and video-sharing websites at 7.7 percent and television broadcasts at 7.4 percent.
Children aged 9 to 18 slept an average of seven hours and 24 minutes daily on weekdays, according to last year’s survey data. The figure was six minutes longer than in 2024. Still, 41.3 percent of middle and high schoolers reported being distressed regularly. In addition, some 25.7 percent said they had experienced depression within the past year.
The ministry's survey also found that intentional self-harm has remained the leading cause of death among youths since 2011.
A total of 1,749 teenagers aged between nine and 24 took their own lives in 2024. The figure was down by 118 from 2023.
Safety accidents ranked as the second leading cause of death, followed by cancer.
A group of children participate in an extracurricular activity in Gyeonggi on March 6. [NEWS1]
There were 7.41 million children aged 9 to 24 in the country this year, according to the ministry, accounting for 14.4 percent of the country's total population.
The figure slipped slightly from last year’s share of 14.8 percent at 7.63 million people.
The male population made up 51.6 percent of the group, while the share of the female population was 48.4 percent.
The 6-to-21-year-old population has also dropped, falling from 13.7 million in 1986 to 6.8 million this year, halving their share of the population from 33.2 percent to 13.1 percent.
By 2070, the demographic is projected to shrink further to 2.9 million, equivalent to 7.8 percent of the population.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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