
South Korea's smartphone addiction camps - reddotX
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/20/asia/smartphone-addiction-camp-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
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dawg-
Part of the problem in Western countries is that we seem to struggle with the
language around smartphone addiction.

We all know at some level that compulsive use of mobile internet is a
widespread problem for a lot of people. But, for starters, the word
"addiction" sometimes feels like a bad fit. Nobody is stealing copper pipes to
pay for more mobile data, at least not that I have heard of. So I understand
why there is resistance to the term. And I understand why someone who
struggles with, for example, heroin addiction would object to smartphones
being thrown in the same category as their disease.

But are there people dropping out of school and losing jobs because their
compulsive mobile internet use took so much of their attention that they
couldn't function normally? There are probably no empirical studies on this
yet. But observationally, I would not be surprised if it was a trend. If you
spend enough time on reddit you will (ironically enough) find communities full
of people discussing exactly how this kind of thing happened to them. And you
will find people who spent $500 binging on lootboxes in a mobile game and now
they need to figure out how to pay their rent this month....

When I am driving down the highway and pass a slow car, and see the driver
_watching netflix_ while driving 70 miles an hour, and when I see this happen
on a regular basis, it is hard to call it anything other than an addiction.
Surely that person knows, rationally, that they should not be watching TV
while driving a car. But they do this self-harming behavior anyway because
they can't stop - that's what addiction looks like.

I wonder if South Korea has any different language or cultural values around
compulsive smartphone use that has made it easier for them to address the
issue?What do we need to do in order to help people talk about this and
describe their experience with this growing trend?

~~~
zeronone
As there is virtually no drugs in South Korea or other east asian countries,
addiction do have a different perception/connotation. Nonetheless, the word
"addiction/중독" is used to refer smartphone addiction.

~~~
noarchy
There is definitely alcohol being consumed in South Korea. Anecdotally, I've
seen some hard-drinking South Koreans. In terms of real data, the country
ranks pretty highly in overall drinking.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_alcohol_consumption_per_capita)

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AYBABTME
Something I find interesting about these articles and South Korea (SK) is that
unlike many other places, I feel that historically, SK has taken all sort of
problems head on and eventually conquered them. I think things like this are
probably more prone to manifest themselves early in SK, but also are more
likely to get addressed and resolved there.

* * *

A (audio) book I really enjoyed about this country, if you want to learn more:
[https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-
Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_...](https://www.audible.com/pd/Korea-
Audiobook/154144888X?pf_rd_p=6a5ce8e4-798e-4a64-8bc5-71dcf66d673f&pf_rd_r=DWE2FR8X24JFP68KXMH0&ref=a_lib_c4_libItem_154144888X)

~~~
starpilot
There have been some other articles in this vein about SK. These are all HN
headlines:

South Korea considers cryptocurrency tax | South Koreans lock themselves up to
escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in South Korea, and the Suicide of
South Korea | Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate
Grandmothers | South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to
stop overwork | South Korean President Impeached (!) | South Korea scrambles
to avoid going the way of Japan | South Korea now recycles 95% of its food
waste | South Korean government to switch to Linux (!) | South Korea's program
of higher wages and taxes – so far, it's not working | Harried South Koreans
pamper pets instead of having kids

One gets the impression of a neurotic, radically changing country that is
trying to course correct with varying levels of success. Other than the
overworking and business corruption, which I think are exceptionally bad in
the country, most of these do seem like issues that other developed nations
will face (or are facing) in the near future.

~~~
elamje
Maybe SK is tackling these issues head on, but from my experience
international news tend to always come with a <country> tag in the title,
whereas local news comes with a <state or city> tag more accurately. It might
be that some countries are doing federal level moves, but I have a feeling we
get a foreigner perception bias as news we see from those countries get the
country name appended to the title, even if it is a more local or regional
phenomena. In the US for instance there might be similar things to the above,
but it would read:

New York considers cryptocurrency tax | Californians lock themselves up to
escape prison of daily life | The Suicides in Denver, and the Suicide of
Denver

But when it comes from a foreign news source, it might contain the country
name in the title, rather!

Again, not sure about SK here, but I’ve been curious how much our perceptions
are biased by foreign news reaching us in a way that makes the reader think
the entire country is doing something great, or terrible.

~~~
thiago_fm
If you are reading this from "international" news in English, I'm sorry to say
that, but you're being brainwashed and the news rarely correlates to reality.

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GistNoesis
They are getting it backwards. They are trying to cure the humans, whereas it
is a technology problem.

We are in the transition phase towards an inversion of control. The machines
have already taken the control but they are still learning how to use their
flesh-processor. The smartphone is still making mistakes like over-tiring its
human and sending him into unproductive loops.

When the smartphone will reach adulthood, these childish behaviors will
naturally stop because having a well domesticated human in good health is much
more rewarding.

~~~
dawg-
This is an interesting and creative fantasy but I don't really see how it
reflects reality. Unless you think smartphones are powered by esoteric magic
and forget that humans build and design every single little function of them,
down to the circuit board.

~~~
GistNoesis
At a high level of abstraction, most of the addictive software is driven by
various metrics, getting feedback from the users, and rewards from the
environment. Most human cogs building the machine are just following the flow
of the algorithm.

Those algorithmic entities have a mind of their own. Humans also have to teach
them the right incentives, like you would with a toddler, for them to grow
into adults we could live along.

In the meantime, until the human-attention resource is properly managed,
humans should probably aim the carrot and the stick at the ones in control.

There is a lot of space to get creative here while embracing progress :

-Instead of punishing the weak human for being addicted, they could for example tax the junk-soft companies in proportion of time spent by addicted users.

-They can also entice the entertainment industry by rewarding them if the students get good grades and sleep well, or make them share the burden if it leads to unemployment, or health expenses.

-Instead of sponsoring non-scaling rehab camps for potentially 30% of the youth population, they could compete by sponsoring game studios that create more positive games/software/distractions.

~~~
dawg-
Behind each level of abstraction lurks a programmer ready to drive a stake in
the heart of your vampire.

Who writes the algorithms? Again, you default to magic. I say engineers.

Besides, algorithms are constantly being tweaked to get the outputs needed to
charge more for ads. And who is doing that tweaking? Engineers, with direction
from executives.

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pcr910303
As a South Korean, I'm obviously biased, but is this not true in other
countries?

Do other countries not have teenagers addicted to smartphones?

I can't find a reason why the 'South Korean' part is relevant to the
article... can anyone clarify?

~~~
daanavitch
I'm a European and I just left Korea after living there for a month. I was
absolutely shocked how addicted Koreans seemed to be to their smartphones. I
had so many people bump into me because they were watching videos while
walking around, on public transport pretty much everyone was staring at their
screen, even older people were playing those mundane mobile games. Sure,
pretty everyone around the world is addicted to their smartphone nowadays, but
I've never seen it as bad as in Korea.

~~~
tannhaeuser
Where in Europe are you based? I'm seeing the exact same behaviour you're
describing here in Germany all over the place, all the time, and I think it's
a serious problem.

~~~
jplayer01
I live in Koeln (and lived in northern parts of Germany before that) and I
just don't see it. There are a couple of people glued to their phones, but the
vast majority simply aren't. And this is taking public transportation
throughout the day, especially morning and evenings at rush hour. It's far
from problematic.

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Shaddox
Isn't this just addressing the symptoms, but not the problem itself?

The camp seems to be showing kids that they can do other things than play with
their phones, but I don't think outside the premises of the camp they can find
people to share similar activities with.

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spodek
Perhaps the people who should go to camps are those creating and designing
software and hardware specifically to keep people coming back to their screens
and staying there.

In this case camps to learn that while they _can_ design them that way, not
to. Or to help create legislation to change the rules of the market to remove
the Nash equilibrium of maximum craving and addiction.

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qiqitori
Don't get it. Why not get a real computer?

~~~
AYBABTME
The problem is that phones are with us all the time, computers aren't. As
such, they're more prone to be taken out of a pocket, or from a bed table,
etc. They're more accessible, so they're more easy to abuse.

When you're waiting at a train stop, it's easy to pull out your phone and
browse. Not so your laptop. Similarly, when you're waiting for your order to
arrive at a restaurant, you pull your phone... Quickly, it becomes a reflex to
just pull out your phone when there's nothing going on, or when you want to
change your mind... then it ends up being when you're in bed about to sleep
but want to look something that crossed your mind...

I'm stating the obvious, but your question is kind of weird. It's kind of
asking "Don't get it. Why not smoke weed" on an article about alcoholism.

~~~
donkeyd
> Quickly, it becomes a reflex to just pull out your phone when there's
> nothing going on, or when you want to change your mind...

This is me, unfortunately. I need to get rid of this urge, but it's s damn
hard. I'm glad I banned phones from the bedroom, I really seem to be able to
fall asleep much better, most times. But in all the other scenarios, that's
me, pulling out my phone to have something to do. I can't even remember what I
used to do while waiting for stuff. Then again, I've had smart phones for the
past 13 years, so that's pretty much all of my grown up life.

~~~
beefield
Buy a dumbphone with wifi hotspot. Remove sim card from smartphone and use it
only over wifi. Consider which apps you actually can use on web browser on
your computer instead of your smartphone. Leave smartphone at the
office/home/car unless you _really_ need smartphone with you.

~~~
lazylizard
Google authenticator...

~~~
donkeyd
Yeah, this is the type of stuff that gets in the way. Also, I really like the
fact that modern phones have great cameras.

None of this is impossible to get around though, I could get a small camera
and there are alternatives to Google Auth.

