"TURN OFF media, turn on life", urges the promotional video from South Korea's Nori Media Education Centre for the Prevention of Internet Addiction, an organisation funded by a mixture of private and public money. Its manager, Kwon Jang-hee, is passionate about protecting children from the ill effects of the internet, and above all of smartphones, which he considers most damaging of all because of their omnipresence. Parents do not understand how dangerous the internet is, he says, pointing to a study by Seoul National University that detected similarities between the brain activity of cocaine addicts and computer-games enthusiasts. If he had his way, youngsters would have to wait for their smartphones until they had graduated from high school.
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