6 hours on screen, 1 hour outdoors: South Korean teens shrug, parents worry

SEOUL – South Korea’s high school students log about six hours of screen time a day on average, while devoting just over an hour to outdoor activities, revealing a significant imbalance in daily physical activity, according to a state research report.

The report also found a stark gap between how students perceive their own smartphone use and how their parents assess it, urging a more careful approach that takes both perspectives into account when addressing overuse.

The survey by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education was conducted on 1,212 students in the second year of high school in 2024 and was released earlier in 2026.

The study showed that female and male students spent an average of 5.8 hours and 6.2 hours per day, respectively, using mobile phones and personal computers.

Entertainment and studying were the most common purposes, with students spending 1.5 hours each, followed by social media and gaming at 1.4 hours and 1.1 hours per day, respectively. Female students tended to spend more time on social media, while male students spent more time gaming.

In contrast, outdoor activities such as exercise accounted for only 1.1 hours on weekdays and 1.6 hours on weekends.

The outdoor activity analysis included only students who said sports or leisure activities outside the home were part of their daily routines. These accounted for 23.7 per cent of respondents on weekdays and 37.7 per cent on weekends.

By comparison, 99 per cent of respondents reported using mobile phones or computers daily, suggesting the gap between multimedia use and outdoor activity may be even wider.

Heavy multimedia use and the resulting lack of outdoor activity have also been linked to worsening health indicators among South Korean adolescents.

According to a separate government study, the obesity rate among middle and high school students rose to 15.5 per cent for boys in 2024, up from 8.8 per cent a decade earlier. Among girls, the rate increased to 9.2 per cent from 6.1 per cent over the same period.

Eye issues have also worsened.

Data from the Ministry of Education showed that the rate of myopia among first-year high school students rose to 74.8 per cent in 2024, up from 63.1 per cent in 2005, when computers and smartphones were less widely used among young students.

However, a stark difference in how children and their primary caregivers perceive multimedia overuse and addiction highlights the difficulty in tackling the issue.

Among the students, 86.3 per cent described themselves as moderate users of multimedia devices, while only 1.2 per cent believed they overused them. Parents viewed the situation differently, with 36.7 per cent saying their children fell into a high-risk group for multimedia overuse.

“For accurate diagnosis and effective intervention in cases of addiction and overuse, evaluations from both parents and children should be considered,” a researcher at the institute said.

“Support and approaches that help close the perception gap between them are needed.” THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK