The worst thing you could do to South Korean teenager? Take away their cellphone
By Peter Rojas 
posted May 2nd 2005 7:28AM
posted May 2nd 2005 7:28AM
Want to punish a South Korean middle school or high school student? Forget about grounding them or whatever it is
parents in South Korea do these days, because a survey done by an ad agency over there found that most students said
that confiscating their cellphone, and thus their connection to the outside world, would be the absolute harshest
punishment you could mete out.
[Via textually.org]
nothing new here, in singapore that's what parents do nowadays. although for me, they took away BOTH my handphone and pocketpc once.
WTF are those 2 girls in the background doing? Is that part of the punishment?
"WTF are those 2 girls in the background doing?"
Umm, eating ice cream cones?
I know that South Korea's ice cream-eating technology is just that much more advanced than ours, but it still looks like a recognizable enough activity to me...
That's brilliant, actually. When I was a kid, the only punishments were things like grounding or a TV embargo - both pretty hard to enforce. After all, it was easy to sneak out at night or just watch TV at a friend's house. Mobile phones are different - you can't just borrow a friend's.
It's almost enough to make me get married, have some kids, and buy them phones; just so I can take them away.
Well, yeah, taking away their cellphones is a terrible thing, but what's up with sticking them in the UV sterilizers?? That's something typically used for needles, test tubes, etc...what, are these cellphones going to be injected into the bloodstream?
"are these cellphones going to be injected into the bloodstream?"
With teenagers, you never know...:)
Seriously though, the Koreans seem to be death on pathogens these days. There was a posting either here on E or on Gizmodo about how cell phone sterilization is becoming a popular service to offer in all kinds of places (like ice cream shops for example) in korea. Similar in cultural significance to our cash register located gum rack, convenient and with ubiquitous apeal.
Aren't those new LG phones also comming with anti bacteria chassis now as well ?
As for punishing teens by taking away their cell phone...Bah! I wish I could have been punished like that. First, I rarely ever use mine NOW so it would hardly be a punishment, second it would mean I would have had a phone as a teenager. Use it or not, I would have been the 'Zack Morris' of ------- ----- High School!
Back in 1996 anyway...