18-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
In Japan, 6 in 10 admit being addicted to their phones: ‘definitely an issue'
As dusk falls across Tokyo, the glow of mobile phone screens flickers in packed trains, public parks and individual restaurant booths – silent beacons of a society that increasingly cannot look away.
Such scenes playing out in the metropolis and elsewhere in
Japan also point to a rising social problem: phone addiction.
A new survey suggests that more than six in 10 Japanese consider themselves addicted to their smartphones – a sharp rise from pre-pandemic levels. Its findings reveal not only how deeply entrenched these devices have become in daily life, but also how their overuse is taking an emotional and physical toll, psychologists say, especially on young people.
'Before the pandemic, I saw very few cases of people concerned about their phone use, but it has definitely become an issue since then,' said Akiko Ohnogi, a doctor of clinical psychology with a practice in Tokyo.
A man looks at his phone while walking in Tokyo's Shinjuku district last year. One in three respondents reported stiff shoulders or neck pain due to prolonged phone use. Photo: AFP
Ohnogi's consultations shifted online during the global health crisis, she told This Week in Asia, but even after the pandemic had passed and life was returning to normal, children who had become accustomed to an online world were increasingly staying there.
