By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
A lawmaker Wednesday called for legislation that would help solve Internet addiction, which has emerged as a major social problem here.
Rep. Lee Joung-sun of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) addressed the need to ease the financial burden for treating Internet-addicted teenagers at a seminar at the National Assembly.
Under the current law, an Internet addict is neither classified as a mental illness nor covered by health care.
More than 14 percent of adolescents aged between 9 and 19 suffer from Internet addiction, according to a 2008 survey by the National Information Society Agency.
The agency says 2.3 percent of them need to go for medical treatment and 12.1 percent of them should have counseling.
Experts say the country will have to shoulder a heavy burden resulting from Internet addiction in the next two decades, unless legislative measures are drawn up to check the worsening social problem.