An Internet watch group survey has shown that the country’s young children spend an average two hours online a day.

A poll of 5,000 people by the National Information Society Agency found that children aged 6 to 9 sit in front of a computer screen or use the Internet via smartphones for an average two hours per day.

The 20s age group spends the longest time online with an average 3.4 hours per day, followed by those in their 30s and 40s with 3.2 and 2.7 hours, respectively. The average time for the 50s group stood at 1.3 hours a day.

The poll suggests nearly half of those aged 6 to 9 spend time online checking emails. Also, more than one-third (37.7 percent) of those young respondents said they use mobile messenger services such as Kakao Talk.

The study also showed nearly half (42.5 percent) of those young children have used the Internet to share pictures and comments, nearly twice as many as in the over-60 age group.

The report came as studies suggest children in Korea are increasingly at risk of Internet addiction. A previous government study showed that 4 in 100 Korean teenagers are at risk.

The survey of 1.74 million youths, conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in cooperation with the Education Ministry, found that 3.9 percent of the participants, or 608,044, were categorized as high-risk Internet users or at-risk users ― in other words, potential addicts.

The high-risk group said they felt the need to be online and experience withdrawal symptoms, such as depression, when offline for significant periods of time, according to the study.

Teen Internet or online gaming addiction has been a growing social problem in Korea, one of the world’s most wired countries. The government instated in 2011 an online gaming curfew, blocking those under age 16 from logging on to online game sites from midnight to 6 a.m.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)