Facts & Statistics on Media & Technology Use By Children & Teens

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Technology has brought about monumental changes in the lives of children. As David Walsh states, “Children 2-17 spend ten times more time in the company of some form of media than they do with their own mothers, and by the time they graduate from high school, kids will have spent three times as many hours sitting in front of a screen as they have spent in the classroom.” (Walsh, 2007, p. 263)

Not only is the amount of time kids spend in front of a screen increasing, but digital devices have altered the landscape of childhood itself; impacting how kids socialize, how they learn, and how they interact with the world. For evidence of this, all you have to do is look to the statistics on media & technology use by children and teens:

Media and Technology use among children and teens

  • In 1990, the average American child spent 28 hours a week in front of a screen. By 2005 that had risen to 40 hours, split between television, video games and the Internet. (Roberts, Foehr & Rideout, 2005)

  • Between 2004 and 2009, young people increased the total amount of media they consumed by more than an hour and a half, to almost 7 1/2 hours a day. (Zimmerman, 2013) This number does NOT include multitasking, or consuming multiple forms of media at once.

  • A nationally representative survey that asked 400 parents about their children’s technology use revealed the following, according to lead researcher Naomi Schaefer Riley: “For those whose oldest was 6 or younger, 30% said that their children spent too much time looking at screens. The figure was 56% for parents who’s oldest was between 7 and 12. And if the oldest child was between 13 and 17, 62% thought they were on screens too much.” (Schaefer-Riley, 2017)

  • A 2014 survey by the New York research firm Michael Cohen Group found that play on touch-screen devices outranks all other kinds of play in frequency – including block play, board games and puzzles. (Chaudhuri, 2017)

Types of technology use among children and teens
Here are some additional statistics on the amount of time children spend with media and digital technology:

Children under 8 are spending less time in front of a TV and more time with digital devices. A breakdown of the percentage of media time spent on each device:

Device    /2011     /2017

1. Television      /69%      /58%

2. DVD/videotape      /31%      /17%

3. Computer      /17%      /10%

4. Video-game player      /14%      /6%

5. Mobile device      /5%      /48%

(Morris & Seetharaman, 2017)

How Technology is Changing Childhood

Digital technology has rapidly replaced physical interaction as the favorite way for teens to communicate with friends:

Method of communication      /2012     /2018

1. Texting      /33%      /35%

2. In person      /49%      /32%

3. Via social media      /7%      /16%

4. Video chatting      /2%      /10%

5. Talking on the phone      /4%      /5%

6. Other      /5%      /2%

(Morris, 9-11-2018)

  • 54% of teens 13 to 17 say their devices distract them when “I should be paying attention to the people I’m with,” up from 44% six years ago. Forty-four percent also say they are frustrated with friends for spending too much time on their phone when they’re together. (Morris, 9-11-2018)

  • One study found that the average parent will post nearly 1,000 digital images of their child online before they turn 5. (Lemieux, 2018)

Statistics on Technology & Little Kids

  • 98% of U.S. homes with children 8 and under had some kind of mobile device in 2018, up from 52% in 2011. (Mims, 1-22-2018)

  • In 2017, 23% of children ages 5 to 8, 11% of children 2 to 4, and 2% of children under 2 used a virtual assistant such as a voice-activated device like Siri or Echo. (ibid)

  • A 2012 nationally representative Pew survey of 12- to 17-year-olds found that only 35% regularly socialize face-to-face anymore, compared with 63% who say they communicate mostly through text messages, sending an average of 167 texts a day. (Kardaras, 2016)

  • This generation spends an average of 6 hours daily with new media, a finding that holds across all races and classes. (Rosen, 8-24-2017)

 

Statistics on Technology & Little Kids

  • 98% of U.S. homes with children 8 and under had some kind of mobile device in 2018, up from 52% in 2011. (Mims, 1-22-2018)

  • In 2017, 23% of children ages 5 to 8, 11% of children 2 to 4, and 2% of children under 2 used a virtual assistant such as a voice-activated device like Siri or Echo. (ibid)

  • Data from the U.K. consulting firm Dubit shows that around two-thirds of 6- to 12-year-olds in the U.S. use tablets or smart phones every day. (ibid)

Additional statistics on kids & technology use

  • Low-income children spend more time in front of screens than high-income children do. For example, kids ages 0 to 8 in low-income households spend an average of 3.5 hours daily with a screen, compared to just under 2 for high-income kids. Yet low-income households are less likely to have broadband Internet. (Painter, 10-19-2017)

  • Nearly half of all kids use digital devices right before bedtime, despite studies showing this interferes with healthy sleep patterns. (ibid)

  • According to one recent poll, more than half of adolescents log on to a social media site more than once a day, and 22% of teens log on to their favorite social media site more than 10-times a day. (Hellmich, 3-28-2011)

See also…

 


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