• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.36-48
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• 2022

As the use of smartphones has rapidly increased due to the development of digital technology, the expansion of smartphones, and the COVID-19 incident, dependence on smartphones and the Internet is emerging as a serious social problem. As one of the solutions to the smartphone overdependence problem, the government and companies are releasing smartphone overdependence prevention applications. However, research on the effectiveness of smartphone overdependence prevention applications is insufficient. Therefore, this study selects 25 applications serviced in Korea as analysis targets and evaluates smartphone overdependence prevention applications in terms of function and service using the FGI survey method to identify problems and propose improvements. In the function evaluation, the functions of blocking illegal/harmful apps/websites, limiting smartphone usage time, and monitoring smartphone usage status are provided in most applications, so satisfaction scores are also highly evaluated. However, functions such as location check, smombie prevention, and body camphishing prevention served by some applications are evaluated low due to poor performance and poor accuracy. Classified by service provider, government-providing applications need to accurately perform functions and improve convenience of use. Mobile-Carrier-providing applications need to improve connectivity with other carriers and compatibility with other smart devices like smartphone, tablet, etc. Other private enterprise-providing applications need to open AS channels such as customer service centre and chatbot to improve service.