More than half of children in South Korea started using smartphones before age two — Korea Herald

In South Korea, more than half of children under the age of five began using smartphones before reaching the age of two. These findings were shown by a survey of parents of 400 Korean children aged two to five, conducted by the Mental Health Research Institute at the National Center for Mental Health.

When children started using smartphones

As Korea Herald reports, the Mental Health Information and NCMH Data, or MIND, report released in January found that 37.18% of parents said their children began using smartphones between the ages of 12 and 23 months. Another 13.8% of respondents said this happened between the ages of zero and 11 months.

Overall, the share of children who began using smartphones before the age of two was 50.98%. Another 23.66% of children used a smartphone for the first time between 24 and 35 months of age, 12.39% between 36 and 47 months, and 12.96% between 48 and 59 months.

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Smartphone use on weekdays

On weekdays, 56.78% of children used smartphones for less than one hour a day. A total of 32.74% of children did not use them, while 9.46% spent between one and three hours with a smartphone.

The report also found a link between smartphone use by mothers and their children. Children of mothers in the high-risk group generally began using smartphones earlier than children of mothers in the low-risk group. The report's authors suggested that such children may have more opportunities to use devices and face fewer parental restrictions.

In its 2019 recommendations, the World Health Organization advises against sedentary screen time for children under two and recommends limiting it to one hour a day for children aged two to four.