Shin (14), a middle school student in Daegu has been addicted to gaming for years. He stayed up all night in his room playing games. He was always late for school, and his friends teased him, calling a “game otaku(maniac)”. Shin blamed himself for being “someone unnecessary.” Late last year, he was diagnosed with severe depression and tried to be admitted to a psychiatric ward at a university hospital, but there were no vacancies, and he was only admitted this month.

“The 30 closed wards at Severance Hospital, which used to house adult schizophrenia patients, are now filled with teens and 20s,” Shin Yee-jin, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Severance Hospital, said on Jan. 29. “Most of them have become so depressed that they have attempted self-harm and suicide.”

The number of teens and 20s suffering from depression, self-harm and other mental illnesses is on the rise. According to the National Health Insurance Corporation, there were 13,303 psychiatric hospitalizations for teens and 20s in 2017, or 14.6% of all patients. But last year, the number rose to 16,819 (22.2%), an increase of nearly 10 percentage points in five years.

  • dubyakay
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    5 months ago

    It’s not just the work force. Korea has mandatory military service.

    • Black Skinned Jew@lemmynsfw.com
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      5 months ago

      Anyway military service produce money to the government(ruling people) so still workforce. Who is defending the business from the NKs to take over it then?

      I would define workforce as: time spend making money(which indirectly makes more money for someone else) or time spend making direct/indirect just money for someone else(which would include protecting the integrity of someone else actives) AKA slavery.