South Korea Taking Efforts to Stop Youth Digital Addiction

story first appeared in usatoday.com

An 11-year-old South Korean, sleeps with her Android smartphone instead of a teddy bear. When the screen beams with a morning alarm, she wakes up, picks up her glasses and scrolls through tens of unread messages from friends, shaking off drowsiness.

Throughout the day, the gadget is in her hands whether she is in school, in the restroom or in the street as she constantly types messages to her friends. Every hour or so, she taps open an application in her phone to feed her digital hamster.

Fiddling with the palm-sized gadget, she says he gets nervous when the battery is low and finds it stressful when out of a wi-fi hotspot.

In South Korea, where the government provides counseling programs and psychological treatment for an estimated 2 million people who cannot wean themselves from playing online computer games, youngsters such as Park have previously not been considered as potential addicts.

Here and in other parts of Asia, online addiction has long been associated with hardcore gamers who play online games for days on end, isolated from their school, work or family life and blurring the line between the real and fantasy online worlds. In a shocking 2010 case in South Korea, a 3-month-old girl died after being fed just once a day by her parents who were consumed with marathon online game sessions.

She does not play computer games and in class, she confidently raises her hand to answer a question. She also gets along well with her friends and likes to cook as a hobby. And yet, she set off more than eight red flags on an addiction test, enough to be considered unhealthily dependent on her smartphone. Park is not unique and the government is concerned enough to make it mandatory for children as young as 3 to be schooled in controlling their device and Internet use.

Her obsession with being online is a byproduct of being reared in one of the world's most digitally connected societies where 98 percent of households have broadband Internet and nearly two thirds of people have a smartphone. Being wired is an icon of South Korea's pride in its state-directed transformation from economic backwater to one of Asia's most advanced and wealthy nations. Always seeking an edge, the government plans to digitize all textbooks from 2015 and base all schooling around tablet computers.

But some now fret about the effects that South Korea's digital utopia is having on its children, part of the first generation to play online games on smartphones, tablets and other devices even before they can read and write.

New mobile devices that instantly respond to a touch of a finger seem to make children more restless than before and lack empathy, said Kim Jun-hee, a kindergarten teacher who conducted an eight-month study on Internet safety and addiction education for pre-school children.

In Suwon city south of Seoul, students in teacher Han Jeoung-hee's classroom now turn in their smartphones when they arrive at school in the morning. After that, he said kids forgot to eat lunch, completely absorbed with smartphones and some stayed in the classroom during a PE class.

Han who teaches sixth grade students at Chilbo elementary school. Smartphones are put in a plastic basket and returned when kids leave for home after classes.

The National Information Society Agency, or NIA, estimates 160,000 South Korean children between age 5 and 9 are addicted to the Internet either through smartphones, tablet computers or personal computers. Such children appear animated when using gadgets but distracted and nervous when they are cut off from the devices and will forgo eating or going to the toilet so they can continue playing online, according to the agency.

Across the entire population, South Korea's government estimated 2.55 million people are addicted to smartphones, using the devices for 8 hours a day or more, in its first survey of smartphone addiction released earlier this year. Smartphone addicts find it difficult to live without their handsets and their constant use disrupts work and social life, according to NIA. Most of their personal interaction is carried out on the mobile handset. Overuse of smartphones may be accompanied by physical symptoms such as turtle neck syndrome caused by having the head in a constant forward position and a pain or numbness in fingers or wrists.

Though Internet addiction is not recognized as a mental illness, there is a growing call from medical practitioners and health officials worldwide to treat it as an illness rather than a social problem.

The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists Internet Use Disorder as meriting further study. It is unclear whether it will be recognized as a mental illness in a major revision of the standard-setting manual due out next year. But as the Internet becomes more pervasive and mobile, more societies are grappling with its downside. In Asia, countries that have experienced explosive growth in the Internet such as Taiwan, China and South Korea are most active in carrying out research into whether Internet addiction should be recognized as a mental illness, according to Lee Hae-kook, a psychiatry professor at Catholic University of Korea, College of Medicine.

South Korea already provides taxpayer-funded counselors for those who cannot control their online gaming or other Internet use. But the emergence of the smartphone as a mainstream, must-have device even for children is changing the government's focus to proactive measures from reactive.

South Korea's government is widening efforts to prevent Web and digital addiction in school-age children and preschoolers. Starting next year, South Korean children from the age 3 to 5 will be taught to protect themselves from overusing digital gadgets and the Internet.

Nearly 90 percent children from that age group will learn at kindergartens how to control their exposure to digital devices and the danger of staying online for long hours. The Ministry of Public Administration and Security is revising laws so that teaching the danger of Internet addiction becomes mandatory from pre-school institutions to high schools.

Kim, the kindergarten teacher, said educating children against digital and web addiction should start early because smartphones are their new toys.

From next year, her program for 3-year-olds will focus on introducing them to the positive activities they can do with the computers, such listening to music. Children aged 4 and 5, will learn the dangers of overuse and how to control their desire to use computers.

Programs also include making and learning the moves for "computer exercises" and singing songs with lyrics that instruct kids to close their eyes and stretch their bodies after playing computer games. They read fairy tales where a character falls prey to Internet addiction and learn alternative games they can play without computers or the Internet.

Kim said parents have to be involved in the education. Some of the children are even calling out parents to change lifestyles along with them.

"Lane-Keeping Technology"

First appeared in NY Times
A DRIVERLESS car is not yet ready for the market. But in the meantime, automakers are continuing to market some components of one. The Ford Motor Company announced last month that it would offer “lane-keeping technology” as an option for its 2013 Ford Fusion and Ford Explorer. The price has not yet been set.

When lane-keeping technology works, it can save lives. But it is suited only for certain road conditions, and there are reasons to doubt that it will activate as consistently as it should.

Ford’s technology relies on a camera mounted to the rear-view mirror. When the system is switched on and the vehicle is traveling more than 40 miles per hour, it will use the road’s lane markings to sense veering near one edge of the lane or the other. If the turn signal is off, the system will assume that the drift is unintentional and will send a vibration to the steering wheel as a warning.

If the driver doesn’t correct the drift, the software is then supposed to engage the power steering and turn the car back toward the center of the lane.

When all goes well, this will be flat-out wonderful. But the camera may have difficulty detecting the lane markings — when the sun is at a low angle, for example, or during heavy rainfall or on curves. If it fails to see the markings, it simply remains dormant.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has declined to give lane-keeping technology its blessing. Ronald Medford, deputy administrator of the agency, says, “We believe additional evaluation and research about lane-keeping systems is needed before we can decide whether we should recommend it to the public.”

Earlier research by the highway agency found performance problems in other systems then available. When asked about that, Michael Kane, a development engineer at Ford, acknowledges that certain conditions, such as when driving into direct sunlight, confound the system. “It’s not perfect,” he says.

But, he continues, “we’ve worked to enable the system to detect lane markings on a much higher percentage of situations, such as tree-lined curves with lots of shadows.”

When Toyota introduced similar technology in its 2010 Prius, it chose to call it “Lane Keep Assist.” Lexus and Mercedes also use similar language for their systems. That “assist” keeps expectations from getting out of hand. Ford is going instead with “Lane Keeping System,” without any namby-pamby qualifier.

Advanced automotive safety technologies, like lane-keeping systems, are most prevalent in Europe, says Eddy Llaneras, a staff member of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

“In Europe, the driving population understands that ultimate responsibility remains with the driver,” he says. “Here in the U.S., we are inclined to believe the technology will do all the work for us. And if it doesn’t, we’ll sue.”

Mr. Llaneras expects that within five to 10 years we will see “lane centering,” in which the vehicle steers itself. “The technology exists today — it’s been tested on research vehicles,” he says. “But manufacturers hesitate to introduce it because the systems can never be 100 percent reliable and they introduce liability exposure.”

Mercedes makes its lane-keeping system active by default, but Ford, like Toyota and Lexus, insists that its system be turned on manually, every time; the driver doesn’t have the option to designate that it be activated by default, or when cruise control is used — a seemingly natural combination.

Ford’s new technology package also includes what it calls a “Driver Alert System,” which will provide warnings when the software detects a pattern of driving associated with drowsiness, such as weaving within the lane boundaries. For the first warning, Ford’s designers have chosen to sound a soft chime and to display this message on the dashboard: “Rest suggested.” If the problem persists, a louder chime and a new message — “Rest now” — follow.

Mr. Kane could not point to any test data, however, that suggests that a driver who is sleepy to the point of being dangerous is likely to find and heed display warnings. Notwithstanding the chimes, delivering the message with an insistent recorded voice would seem a better choice.

J. Christian Gerdes, director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford and an associate professor of mechanical engineering, has been testing driverless cars since the early 1990s. One such vehicle successfully climbed the twisty road to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado — and did so multiple times. Its technology, however, isn’t coming soon to an auto showroom near you: its navigation relies on a base station in the area to transmit a Differential Global Positioning System signal.

Even if camera-based lane-keeping systems were to work well, we might not end up safer. Mr. Gerdes calls attention to the “risk accommodation” problem. “As vehicles are made safer, drivers may compensate by engaging in riskier behavior,” he explains.

As humans, we have one thing that works in our favor while driving: we are more likely to handle unexpected events successfully than the software in an autonomous car.

“Humans understand context,” Mr. Gerdes says. “If I’m driving along a row of parked cars and a ball rolls out into the street, I know to look for a child.”

Then again, we humans aren’t always exemplary in paying attention to the road. Ford’s system may lack perfect vision, but it will never be distracted because it’s checking its e-mail.

Quattrone's Return

Frank Quattrone's new advisory firm, Qatalyst Partners, marked one of the investment-banking world's great comebacks, not the least because ofthe tech-world heavyhitters that have thrown their support behind Mr. Quattrone. The statement about Qatalyst's founding includes supportive quotes from Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who gushed about Mr. Quattrone's experience and "unparalleled industry knowledge."

Other tech mavens who showed up were Bill Campbell, chairmain of Intuit, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, and Gideon Yu, the chief financial officer of Facebook, former CFO of YouTube and former treasurer of Yahoo. The long list of tech companies that its bankers have advised include: Adobe, Agilent, AOL, Apple, Amazon.com, Applied Materials, and Ascend. And that's just the "A"s.

Such big names go a long way toward confirming Mr. Quattrone's star status in the technology industry. Mr. Quattrone's founding group doesn't (yet) include some of his longtime associates, like star bankers Bill Brady and George Boutros, who are still where he left them at Credit Suisse Group.

The first people to join him are former Credit Suisse vice president of Internet banking Frank Quattrone Jonathan Turner and the former general counsel of the Credit Suisse technology group, Adrien Dollard.

The more junior bankers include former Evercore Partners vice president Neil Chalasani, former Goldman Sachs vice president Brian Slingerland and Vista Partners associate Brian Cayne.

by Heidi Moore
Wall Street Journal