More children are addicted to the Internet than adults, and teenagers are the most likely age group to suffer Internet addiction, a government study found Monday.

Children aged 5-9 are more addicted to the Internet, at 7.9 percent, than adults aged 20-49 who had an addiction rate of 6.8 percent, according to the study by the Public Administration Ministry and the National Information Society Agency.

The addiction rate for children is higher than the average rate of 7.7 percent for all age groups.

The research was conducted on 10,000 citizens ― 663 children, 2,130 teenagers and 7,207 adults ― from Oct. 24 to Dec. 10 last year in the form of one-on-one interviews.

Those aged 10-19 had the highest addiction rate, 10.4 percent. Of them, high school students had the highest incidence at 12.4 percent.

“Children and teenagers can’t control their emotions as their frontal lobe has yet to fully develop. So they are more likely to be addicted to the Internet than adults,” said Woo Jee-hyang, a counselor at Seoul Culture High School.

The report added that underprivileged students were more likely to be addicted to the Internet, as the data showed that teenagers from low-income families with under 2 million won ($1,780) income per month showed a higher addiction rate at 13 percent; those from multicultural families at 14.2 percent; and those from a single parent family at 10.5 percent, which all exceeded the average rate of 10.4 percent for teenagers.

Among adults, those in their 20s were twice likely to have Internet addiction at 9.2 percent than 4.7 percent in their 40s. Most of them with an addiction problem were in college or unemployed.

More men were addicted to the Internet at 9.1 percent than women at 6.1 percent.

Internet addicts identified by the study spent an average 2.7 hours a day playing online games and surfing the net.

The average hours spent using the Internet is 1.9 hours for non-addicts. The most common reported uses were reading news articles (43 percent) and surfing the net (36.2 percent).

Smartphone addiction was also reported.

Teenagers recorded the highest smartphone addiction rate at 11.4 percent, followed by adults in 20s at 10.4 percent.

The average time spent using smartphones was 52.4 minutes per day, and about 10 percent of smartphone users thought they were overusing the gadget.

The government is working on measures to cure Internet addiction as the study concluded that more people were at greater risk of addiction, although it found that the average addiction rate went down by 0.3 percent from last year.

It plans to conduct preventive education tailored to different age groups, expand counseling and therapy centers and professional personnel.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@herladm.com)