Parents refuse to acknowledge teens’ internet addiction

The Kukmin Ilbo has an interesting story today about how, although schools are beginning to screen students for signs of depression and ADHD associated with internet addiction, 90 percent of parents refuse to allow their children to receive treatment. Typically the parents deny that there is any problem at all with their kids. Sometimes the parents even pull the kid out of school and lie to authorities that they’ve been sent to study abroad. Health officials come off in interviews as very, very frustrated.

The pilot programs remain small, however, in the face of about 877,000 internet-addicted children nationwide, so perhaps this is an issue of small sample size.

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