Teens spend most of digital social lives on Instagram: data

Instagram has emerged as the social media app South Korea's teens spend the most time on, outpacing KakaoTalk by more than double, data showed Monday.

According to data from mobile marketing and data analysis company IGAWorks, Korea's smartphone users under 20 spent a total of 94.1 million hours scrolling on Instagram in June, making the app the leading social media platform in popularity for the age group. This figure was nearly double the time they spent on the next most popular app, mobile messenger KakaoTalk, with 48.2 million hours.

Instagram's popularity is particularly salient in the under-20 age group, given that KakaoTalk is the most used social media app among Korea's general population.

Owned by US social media giant Meta Platforms, which also owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Threads, Instagram has seen a recent surge in popularity centered on the combination of its short video content, Instagram Reels, with its photo-based content and messenger.

Compared to December last year, Instagram use for the same age group has climbed 3.7 percent from 90.7 million hours, while screen time for its sibling, Facebook, plummeted by 44.1 percent, and for KakaoTalk, it declined by 7.6 percent.

If IGAWorks' list were to include YouTube, Instagram would rank second behind it for Korea's under 20s. The total hours spent on Google's online video sharing platform was 277.8 million.

This trend of spending more time on social media platforms has raised concerns about the potential of smartphone addiction here, prompting some of Korea's lawmakers to introduce bills aimed at addressing the issue.

On July 16, Rep. Youn Kun-young of the Democratic Party of Korea proposed amending the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection to prevent social media operators from allowing users under 14 to register to become a member.

Youn's office cited the potential negative impacts of social media on “children's intelligence, cognitive and mental development.”

The following day, Rep. Kim Jang-gyeom of the People Power Party also introduced another revision bill for the act that aims to define recommendations provided through algorithms as "addictive content," and for social media platforms using algorithms to confirm a minor is a member via consent of their legal guardian.