Kids online more than parents
2009-07-09 08:18
Barbara Ortutay
New York - Young kids are getting online at a faster rate than their parents and older siblings.
A new study from Nielsen Online found that nearly 16 million US children ages 2 to 11 were online in May. They made up about 9.5% of internet users.
The youngest of the set - 2, 3, and 4-year-olds - probably aren't yet updating their Twitter accounts with 140-character messages, or posting quiz results to Facebook. Rather, they are sitting in a parent's lap in front of a computer, being exposed to the internet that way, said Peter Grunwald, president of Grunwald Associates LLC, which specialises in researching kids and technology.
In the past five years, Nielsen said, the number of kids online has grown by 18%, compared with just a 10% growth among all internet users. And this growth comes as the total number of US kids under 14 is declining.
In all, the time children spend online grew 63% in the past five years, from nearly 7 hours in May 2004 to more than 11 hours online this past May.
Nielsen also found that boys spent 7% more time online than girls, but girls viewed 9% more web pages than boys did in May 2009. Grunwald said kids are also beginning to produce their own content rather than use the web as a passive viewer.
- AP