South Korea hunts for digital detox fixes as 40 percent of kids hooked on screens

South Korea has a screen problem, and it starts young. Roughly 40 percent of the country's children and teens are estimated to be addicted to their mobile devices, according to a France 24 report. Authorities are now hunting for ways to cut that screen time drastically.

The scale of the challenge is baked into the country itself. South Korea is one of the most hyper-connected societies on the planet, where phones are woven into school, work and daily life. Pulling kids away from their screens there is a far bigger job than flipping a switch.

France 24's Chloé Borgnon, Aruna Popuri and Justin McCurry reported on the push, which is still a search for answers rather than a finished policy. The effort is a measure of how seriously officials are treating device addiction among the youngest users.

The debate isn't only playing out in Asia. In August, France's Constitutional Council overturned a social media ban for children under 15. Even so, some French students are now barred from using their smartphones at school — a smaller-scale version of the same fight.

What the fix ultimately looks like in South Korea remains an open question. What's clear is that a country wired to the hilt is now trying to teach its kids to look up.