About 85 percent of the Romanian children aged from 5 to 16, who have Internet access, are online on a daily basis, spending on average over 5 hours per day on social media, reads a study conducted by iSense Solutions exclusively for Lowe Group Romania.
This is the third study from the Bold by Lowe Group series, analyzing the behaviour of children comprised in three age groups – 5 to 7; 8 to 12 and 13 to 16 – in the digital area.
Data show that the average age when people usually get devices is 8.5 years old for a tablet, 9 years old for a computer, 10 years old for smartphone and 11 years old for other smart devices. However, the little ones have access to their parents’ devices even before getting a personal device.
„Technology brought in the children’s arms from an early age generates behaviour changes both among the youngsters and also in the decision-making process in the family. 71% of the parents state that they ask their children what they would like to buy and 51% consider the little ones as very persuasive, as this comes due to the rise of the confidence in the children’s perception, a rise owing to the children’s access to information by using modern devices. Our stake is to understand the factors influencing the new behaviour patterns and to identify the hints that could lead us in preparing long-term communication strategies for our future customers,” said Adela Preda, Digital Creative Strategist, Profero.
Not by any surprise, the most frequently used device by children is the smartphone. The children spend on smartphone 160 minutes every day on average, even 208 minutes in the case of teenagers aged 13 to 16. The tablet is more and more preferred by children aged from 5 to 7.
The littles ones are usually on the internet from home, watching music video clips, funny clips and cartoons or in order to be on social media. They have 14 apps downloaded on their smartphones on average, the most common ones being those to surf the net, social media, games and chat/messenger.
Small children prefer to play on the smartphone, while teenagers are networking. Children have accounts on several social media, the most popular one being Facebook (43%, spending 121 minutes per day on the average), Whatsapp (11% / 72 minutes), Instagram (2% / 67 minutes) and Snapchat (1% / 62 minutes).