According to a new study by Bitkom, the vast majority of children and young people now have a smartphone. Social media in particular is used intensively on these smartphones.
Digital media have become a matter of course for today’s youth: In general, 92 percent of children and young people between the ages of six and 18 use the Internet, and 57 percent of them can no longer imagine life without the Internet. This is the result of a representative study by the digital association Bitkom.
In general, 85 percent use a smartphone at least occasionally and spend an average of two hours a day on it. Smartphone use and its duration increase significantly with age: between the ages of six and nine, 64 percent use a smartphone and do so for an average of 37 minutes a day. In contrast, 16 to 18-year-olds spend an impressive 201 minutes in front of their mobile device, which 98 percent of them use.
Text messages (90 percent) are the most popular use, closely followed by listening to music, radio plays or podcasts (89 percent). 82 percent take photos or videos, 81 percent play games on their smartphone, 80 percent send voice messages and 79 percent make phone calls with the device
Overall, 93 percent of children and young people between the ages of 10 and 18 use social networks on PCs, smartphones or tablets, 83 percent of them even on a daily basis. YouTube leads the way across all age groups with 87 percent. This is followed by Instagram and Snapchat with 53 percent each. A good half (51 percent) of kids use TikTok.
A third (33 percent) say they can no longer imagine life without social media. 42 percent of children and young people between the ages of 10 and 18 who use social media say that they spend more time on it than they would like.
