[Editorial] An anxious society

Nearly 4 million closed-circuit TVs are installed at buildings, apartment complexes, public facilities and streets across Korea, according to figures from the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Still, demand for security-related services has been growing in a reflection of widespread anxiety in Korean society.

In addition to CCTV, unmanned electronic security and access control systems have been set up at an increasing number of places. Recently, a new type of service to code voice calls and text messages on mobile phones has been gaining popularity. According to industry sources, the local security market size is forecast to increase from 3.1 trillion won ($2.8 billion) in 2011 to an estimated 4.7 trillion won in 2015.

A Seoul-based research center on consumer trends used the term “City of Hysteria” to describe the symptom of urban residents becoming increasingly sensitive and hysteric in insecure living conditions.

Anxiety and distress have pervaded Korean society, where competition is intensifying, crimes are increasing and the traditional family structure is collapsing. A 2011 study by a local institute on health and social affairs showed that two in every 10 Korean adults suffered from a mental illness.

What makes the problem worse is that mentally-ill Koreans are less willing to or have less opportunities to receive proper treatment or other services. The proportion of people with a psychiatric disorder who see doctors or counselors remains at 17.5 percent in the country, compared to 32.9 percent in the U.S. With about 42 people on average killing themselves every day, Korea has kept the highest suicide rate among the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for the past years.

Intensifying competition for a limited pool of decent jobs, which has driven young students into excessive competition for higher grades, has combined with family dissolution and a steep rise in serious crimes to stoke social anxiety.

With nearly half of all households consisting of just one or two members, the traditional family role as a foundation for emotional and economic stability is hardly available for most people in contemporary society. It may be connected to this that more and more people are looking to books and programs intended to offer psychological healing.

More consideration is now needed about how to help ease or contain excessive anxiety, which is incurring otherwise unnecessary costs to individuals and society as a whole. As noted by experts on social psychology, anxiety tends to be easily and quickly transferred to other people.

Support should be increased for facilities and programs that take care of people’s psychiatric problems. More measures need to be taken to help promote community and affinity group activities, which would be instrumental in getting participants to experience emotional satisfaction.

It is needless to say that enhancing employment and curbing crimes will be the indispensible part of the work toward relieving our society of the excessive anxiety weighing on its members.