Too anxious

In addition to CCTV, unmanned electronic security and access control systems have been set up at an increasing number of places. Recently, a new type of service to code voice calls and text messages on mobile phones has been gaining popularity. According to industry sources, the local security market size is forecast to increase from 3.1 trillion won (US$2.8 billion) in 2011 to an estimated 4.7 trillion won in 2015.

A Seoul-based research centre on consumer trends used the term “City of Hysteria” to describe urban residents becoming increasingly sensitive to insecure living conditions.

Anxiety and distress have pervaded Korean society, where competition is intensifying, crimes are increasing and the traditional family structure is collapsing. A 2011 study by a local institute on health and social affairs showed that two in every 10 Korean adults suffered from a mental illness. 

What makes the problem worse is that the mentally ill are less willing to, or have less opportunity, to receive proper treatment or other services. The proportion of people with a psychiatric disorder who see doctors or counsellors remains at 17.5 per cent in the country, compared to 32.9 per cent in the US. With about 42 people on average killing themselves every day, South Korea has the highest suicide rate among the 34-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Intensifying competition for a limited pool of decent jobs, which has driven young students into excessive competition for higher grades, has combined with family dissolution and a steep rise in serious crimes to stoke social anxiety. 

With nearly half of all households consisting of just one or two members, the traditional family role as a foundation for emotional and economic stability is hardly available for most people in contemporary society. It may be connected to this that more and more people are looking to books and programmes intended to offer psychological healing. 

More consideration is now needed about how to help ease or contain excessive anxiety, which is incurring otherwise unnecessary costs to individuals and society as a whole. As noted by experts on social psychology, anxiety tends to be easily and quickly transferred to other people.

Support should be increased for facilities and programmes that take care of psychiatric problems. More measures need to be taken to help promote community and affinity group activities, which would be instrumental in getting participants to experience emotional satisfaction.

Needless to say, enhancing employment and curbing crimes will be the indispensible part of the work toward relieving our society of the excessive anxiety weighing on its members.