hankyoreh

There are very few households in South Korea that do not see trouble between parents and children over mobile phones.

In many cases, parents who gave their children mobile phones in order to vigilantly keep guard over their childrens’ comings and goings are worried that their children have been using the phone to talk with their friends instead, hurting their school performance. Such anxiety leads to distrust, and parents tend to try to interfere with their children’s behavior, resulting in disputes.

What exactly does a mobile phone mean for children? Only when parents understand the answer to this question can they start to resolve such problems. The Hankyoreh asked the question to 146 students at Yeonhyeon Middle School in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province.

A mobile phone is a lifestyle. Park Hye-bin, a seventh-grader, said, "If I don’t have one, I will have no privacy of my own." According to the students, they can send messages when they want to say something that would be awkward to say to a person face-to-face. Juveniles tend to have many secrets they want to keep from their parents and they become emotionally independent from their parents by constantly communicating with their friends.

The mobile phone is also a tool for self-management. For example, the students put the dates of school exams or friends’ birthdays in their phone planners. The phone also becomes a calculator when checking how they have spent their allowance. These days, young people do not carry a wristwatch because they can check the time through their mobile phones. They also wake up in the morning using their phone’s alarm.

Mobile phones are for play, as well. According to data published by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in April, Korean youths aged between 15 and 19 sent about 60 text messages a day last year. Exempting eight sleeping hours, they wrote 3.75 messages every hour on average, or one every 16 minutes. Without phones, they felt "bored." In the middle of studying, they inquired about what their friends were doing, and they took breaks by playing games via their phones or listening to music stored on them, as many mobile phones come with MP3 audio file players.

So, what do they think about their parents’ worries that their mobile phone use hinders their studying? They seemed to admit this to be true. Yu U-hyeon, a seventh-grader, said, "I began to study less after I got a phone." A considerable number of students said, "I unconsciously touch my phone constantly." And, as they should send a reply to any text message received from a friend, even during class, some students said, "it is true that we can’t concentrate on our studying."

Most students who maintained that mobile phone use has no effect on study habits also admitted they turned their phones off while studying. Seventh grader Kim Hyeon-ju said, "I prefer sending text messages to playing computer games when I want to refresh myself while studying." But she said that she did so only after concentrating on her studies for a while. Indeed, most of the students who rejected the view that having a mobile phone interrupts their studying seemed to be able to control themselves to a degree that they switch on their phone during breaks only.

Kim Gyeong-eun, an eighth-grader, said, "It depends on students. It is important to have the ability to practice self-control." The fact that students, too, know the potential ill effects of mobile phone usage shows that it is possible that the instruction of parents or teachers to minimize them can work.

To children, the mobile phone is a double-edged sword. It helps children foster independence, but hinders studying at the same time. The situation is the same for parents. They can easily confirm the safety of their children, but their children can become addicted to having a mobile phone.

Therefore, parents and children should negotiate over the phone, setting principles through dialogue and discussion upon which both parties can agree, regarding when to purchase a phone and how it will be used. In the process, not only the children but also the parents will learn about how to wisely use a mobile phone.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]