A survey conducted in South Korea on smartphone usage among men and women revealed that women are more prone to becoming addicted to them compared to men.
The report by academic Chang Jiang Jae-Yeon of Ajou University is based on a survey of 1,236 students from six schools in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, in 2013, according to the Korea Times. It was the first study to find that women are more addicted to smartphones than men.
The survey found that women regularly check phones for four hours or more a day compared to men who are well below the 52% average, at just 29.4%, according to the Korea Times. Women scored 22.9% of users who engage with their smartphones for six hours a day compared to men who had a rate of only 10.8%.
Jae-Yeon explained, “We expect that teenagers are likely to show similar results. Female users are advised to consciously put their phones away for a period of time.” He also added, “Women’s desire for networking and communication is much stronger than men’s, leading them to be more dependent on social networking services (SNS) via their smartphones.”
Social networking services like Facebook and Instagram are at the top of the list for most women as to why they use a smartphone.
On the other hand, men use their smartphones during breaks, while 37.2% of women constantly check their mobile phones, even when talking to other people. The research revealed that 20.1% of women who participated in the study feel extremely insecure when they cannot use their smartphones, while only 8.9% of men had this feeling of insecurity.
According to Chang Jiang, the findings show that women's addiction is 10 percent higher than men's. Based on the results of the study, the researchers concluded that for many women, their addiction is starting to affect their mental health. The study was published in the May-June issue of the U.S. Public Health Service's Public Health Reports.
