More than half of South Korean toddlers first used a smartphone before their second birthday, a survey found, with usage rising sharply on weekends. The share of children using smartphones one to three hours a day was more than twice as high on weekends as on weekdays, prompting calls for closer management of weekend screen exposure.
The Mental Health Research Institute at the National Center for Mental Health released the findings on the 28th in MIND, its mental health research newsletter. The survey covered 400 parents of children aged 2 to 5. It found that 50.98% of respondents said their child began using a smartphone before turning 2.
By age of first use, the largest group, 37.18%, said their child first used a smartphone between 12 and 23 months. Another 13.80% said their child was exposed to smartphones between birth and 11 months, indicating that exposure before the first birthday is not uncommon.
Usage time differed by day of the week. On weekdays, 56.78% of respondents said their child used a smartphone for less than an hour a day, followed by 32.74% who said their child did not use one at all. Only 9.46% reported usage of one to three hours.
On weekends, those reporting less than an hour of use still accounted for a majority at 54.87%, but the share reporting one to three hours jumped to 22.58%, more than double the weekday figure. Those reporting no use fell to 21.28%, more than 11 percentage points below the weekday level.
In its 2019 guidelines, the World Health Organization recommended that children under 2 avoid screen exposure, including television viewing and smartphone use. For children aged 2 to 4, it specified that daily screen time be limited to one hour or less.
Related research has repeatedly confirmed the risks of early smartphone exposure. A study by the pediatrics team at Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital of children who visited the hospital for delayed language development found that 63% had been exposed to video media for more than two hours a day.
Among those children, 95% first encountered media before 24 months of age. More recently, a joint research team from four universities including the University of Leeds in Britain analyzed 48 papers published since 2020 and reported that screen exposure before age 2 can negatively affect language and emotional development as well as sleep and eyesight.
