The purpose of this study was to examine the condition of smart phone game usage of five-year-old children, the children's level of smart phone game addiction, and their knowledge of smart phone game addiction. About more than 400 surveys were release...
The purpose of this study was to examine the condition of smart phone game usage of five-year-old children, the children's level of smart phone game addiction, and their knowledge of smart phone game addiction. About more than 400 surveys were released to parents of five-year-old children from the kindergartens in Seoul city for this research and 239 of the survey data were retrieved and qualified as the data for the final data analysis.
The following research questions were formulated for the survey.
Question I. What is the condition of smart phone game usage of five-year-old children?
Question II. What is the condition of smart phone game addiction of five-year-old children?
Question III. How much knowledge do five-year-old children have about the smart phone game addiction?
The results of this study were as follows.
First, the results showed that most children first encountered smart phone game during the first year of their lives, and the first one to introduce smart phone game was found to be mostly elder siblings. On average, children played smart phone game less than 30 minutes per day and once to twice per week. It was most common for parents to let children played smart phone game when they were travelling, and the smart phones were belonged to parent in most cases. Usually children played smart phone games over the weekend, and mostly played non-violent games. They were only able to play the games when parents were present.
The relationship between children’s personal background and environme nt was found as the following. First, first born and only child learned smart phone games from their parents and they usually played with their parents. Second and third born child usually learned smart phone games from their older siblings and they usually played with their siblings. Children with their fathers in clerical position, usually played smart phone games over the weekend. Children with fathers working in service or labor sector, usually played smart phone games during weekdays. Boys played smart phones games earlier than girls. Boys preferred sports games, and girls preferred educational games. First and only child usually played smart phones games to spend their leisure time, and second and third born children usually played smart phones games with play with their siblings.
Second, the smart phone game addiction score of five-year-old children was average 33.34(SD=15.60), and the result indicates that the addiction level was less serious. The average time for smart phone usage was 30 minutes, but there was statistically significant difference(t=-5.624, p<.001) between the most playing group and the least playing group. There was also statistically significant difference(t=-4.803, p<.001) between the group playing the smart phone twice a week and the group playing the smart phone three times a week.
Third, the score for five-year-old children’s knowledge on smart phone games addiction was average 58.05(SD=17.71), and the result indicates that children had little knowledge about smart phone game addiction. There was also statistically significant difference(t=2.425, p<.05) between the group playing smart phone games more than 30 minutes and the group playing smart phone games less than 30 minutes. There was no significant difference between the group playing smart phone games less than twice a week and the group playing smart phone games more than twice a week.