Mobile phone ownership has declined among children and...
Mobile phone ownership has declined among children and the use of tablet computers at home has tripled since 2012 in the U.K., said an Ofcom report on media use and attitudes of children and parents in the U.K. released Thursday…
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(http://bit.ly/16I9Ptb). The multifunctionality of tablets tends to meet younger children’s entertainment needs and older children use smartphones for peer communication such as IMing and social networking, said Ofcom. Twenty-six percent of children aged 12-15 and 18 percent of children aged 8-11 have their own tablet computer, and use of a tablet computer at home has tripled among 5-15-year-olds since 2012 from 14 percent to 42 percent, said the report. The number of children accessing the Internet via a personal computer has decreased to 68 percent, from 85 percent in 2012, and the number of children using a alternative device such as a tablet (13 percent) and a smartphone (11 percent) has doubled to 32 percent, from 15 percent in 2012, said the report. Compared with last year, children aged 12-15 are less likely to set up a social networking site profile (68 percent vs. 81 percent), but the variety of social networking sites has increased with 37 percent of children aged 12-15 with a Twitter profile, compared with 25 percent in 2012, said Ofcom. More than four in 10 children aged 5-15 are using alternative devices to watch TV content, said the report. Twenty-five percent of U.K. children watch TV programs on a mobile phone and 29 percent of children aged 8-15 are using on-demand services, said the report. Ofcom said it used three quantitative tracking surveys to understand children’s behavior in the U.K. communications markets for 5-15-year-olds, and it did surveys with parents of 3-4 year old children between April and June. Ofcom used BARB, U.K.’s TV measurement panel, to analyze children’s TV viewing habits and comScore to find the 40 websites visited by children and the frequency of IMing for 13-17-year-olds.