Adolescent Smartphone Overdependence in South Korea: A Place-Stratified Evaluation of Conceptually Informed AI/ML Modeling

Smartphone overdependence among South Korean adolescents, affecting nearly 40%, poses a growing public health concern, with usage patterns varying by regional context. Leveraging conceptually informed AI/ML models, this study (1) develops a high-performing low-risk screening tool to monitor disease burden, (2) leverages AI/ML to explore psychologically meaningful constructs, and (3) provides place-based policy implication profiles to inform public health policy. This study uses data from 1873 adolescents in the 2023 Smartphone Overdependence Survey by the National Information Society Agency (NISA) in South Korea. Across the sample, the adolescents were about 14 years old (SD = 2.4) and equally distributed by sex (48.1% male). We then conceptually selected 131 features across two domains and 10 identified constructs. A nested modeling approach identified a low-risk screening tool using 59 features that achieved strong predictive accuracy (AUC = 81.5%), with Smartphone Use Case features contributing approximately 20% to performance. Construct-specific models confirmed the importance of Smartphone Use Cases, Perceived Digital Competence and Risk, and Consequences and Dependence (AUC range: 80.6–89.1%) and uncovered cognitive patterns warranting further study. Place-stratified analysis revealed substantial regional variation in model performance (AUC range: 71.4–91.1%) and distinct local feature importance. Overall, this study demonstrated the value of integrating conceptual frameworks with AI/ML to detect adolescent smartphone overdependence, offering novel approaches to monitoring disease burden, advancing construct-level insights, and providing targeted place-based public health policy recommendations within the South Korean context.