The Korean case teaches us a lot about what ‘Homo numericus’ might look like.”

chronic. South Korea is a country with the world’s highest smartphone penetration rate for the general population (95% of Koreans over the age of 18 had one in 2019), as well as especially for elementary school, college, and high school students. This is not without consequences for the cognitive abilities of young Koreans.

Sunyong Han, an education researcher, measured the effects of early smartphone use and variety of use (educational or recreational) on independent learning and school outcomes (“The Impact of Smartphones on Students: How Age at First Use and Duration of Use Affect Learning and Academic Progress,” Technology in Society) No. 70, 2022).

Prior to this study, empirical research on these issues was inconclusive. They proved, on the one hand, that the educational use of smartphones increases students’ motivation and their ability to communicate, which positively affects learning processes and performance. But they also revealed, on the other hand, a negative impact on the body and mind due to addictive behavior.

Critical threshold, elementary school

On the other hand, this article looks very precisely at the impact on learning and school outcomes, mobilizing data from a 2018 longitudinal survey conducted in Seoul on the behavior of nearly three thousand young people born in 2000, almost two-thirds of whom were already using a smartphone at the time of the survey.

This database contains information on age of first use, daily duration, primary motivation (education, leisure), as well as learning opportunities and academic outcomes.

The results are of course distinguished by Korean specificity (high level of digitalization, smartphone market share, very significant time devoted to education and the very competitive nature of the latter), but still have general implications.

First, the age of first use affects the subsequent daily time spent with the phone and leads to forms of addiction. The critical threshold is at the elementary school level. On the other hand, using for the first time since college does not have a significant negative effect.

recreation or education

Then, the impact varies depending on whether the smartphone is used for leisure or education. In the first case, this use increases the risk of dependence and reduces the possibility of autonomous learning, which is not true in the second case – provided that we can accurately distinguish between the two.