Original articleEffect of the Online Game Shutdown Policy on Internet Use, Internet Addiction, and Sleeping Hours in Korean Adolescents
Section snippets
Data and study population
Data from the 2011 to 2015 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey (KYRBS) were used [22]. The KYRBS is an anonymous, self-administered web-based survey conducted annually since 2005 by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to understand the health-related risk behaviors among Korean adolescents. Data from 2005 to 2007 failed to provide any measure of internet usage, whereas questionnaires from 2008 to 2010 differed
Results
Table 1 illustrates the general characteristics of both groups of adolescents who participated in the KYRBS between 2011 and 2015. Figure 1 shows the results of the change in Internet usage and sleeping hours between the affected group and the unaffected group. The internet usage of both groups during the week, weekdays, and weekends all sharply decreased in 2012 (i.e., the first year of policy enforcement) compared with 2011 (before policy enforcement). The decrease in mean daily minutes of
Discussion
This study examined the changes in adolescent Internet usage status and sleeping hours following enforcement of an online game shutdown policy. Internet usage declined in the first 2 years following policy enforcement. In particular, daily minutes of Internet usage during the whole week, weekdays, and weekends, as well as the ratio of Internet-addicted adolescents, showed statistically significant decrements in 2012. However, we doubt that decrements of magnitude less than 5 minutes were
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Jiyun Choi and Hyunseok Cho had equal contributions.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.