Most of the push for "smartphone" / "computer" addiction come from those countries that are very conservative and have high levels of social control compared to the norm in developed countries.
These countries are going through in a generation the changes that took hundreds of years in Europe - with all that disruption that implies.
Its more about enforcing control of the population and using addiction in this way cheapens other more serious addiction problems.
There are also parallels to other media panics comic's in the 50's satanic DnD in the 80's
Yeah - they have been through that with online gaming and seem to be heroically oblivious to the concept that it isn't addiction but escaping their excessive control any way they can. Because any answer which isn't more control over the youth is unacceptable and you are childish or otherwise a bad person for thinking otherwise. Because it is outside the norm they don't need to justify anything or listen. That isn't just a South Korea thing unfortunately.
These countries are going through in a generation the changes that took hundreds of years in Europe - with all that disruption that implies.
Its more about enforcing control of the population and using addiction in this way cheapens other more serious addiction problems.
There are also parallels to other media panics comic's in the 50's satanic DnD in the 80's