CHILDREN WATCH TV MORE OFTEN THAN YOUNG PEOPLE, WHO PREFER SOCIAL MEDIA

While watching TV is one of the most frequent media activities for children under 14, it is much less frequent among 15-19 year olds. They spend more time watching movies on electronic devices and especially on social media.

The most commonly used device for media activities among children is the mobile phone. It is used by up to 70 % of 6-8 year olds, 89 % of 9-14 year olds and 98 % of 15-19 year olds. The smartphone is also the device on which today’s children spend most of their time. This is shown by data from a new wave of a research called “Czech children as readers in the time of the covid-19 pandemic”, conducted by the Nielsen Admosphere agency for the National Library in Prague. The results of the research were published at an online press conference on Thursday.

In terms of the daily frequency of media activities, there is a noticeable difference between different age groups of children and young people. While children aged 6-8 are most likely to spend their day getting ready for school, playing at home and watching TV, older children aged 9-14 are most likely to play electronic games and watch TV after getting ready for school. For young people aged 15-19, the most common daily activities are using social media, surfing on the internet and listening to music.

The data also show that while children under 14 years of age prefer watching TV among traditional media activities, young people over 15 years of age have a significantly lower proportion of TV watching and, on the contrary, spend more time watching films on electronic devices and even more time on the aforementioned internet searches and social media.

The results confirmed that the covid-19 pandemic has increased media activities of both children and young people. Electronic gaming increased most significantly among older children during the covid-19 pandemic, and they watched movies on electronic devices and used social media more often. For younger children, electronic gaming also increased the most during the pandemic, followed by watching movies on electronic devices and playing board games. For 15-19 year olds, the pandemic led to increases in watching movies on electronic devices, using social media and reading articles online.

Compared to 2017, the proportion of children and especially adolescents who appreciate the importance of reading books for education has increased. There was also an increase in the rating of “reading books is important for my future life” among young people. Children were the most likely to say in the survey that reading books is fun; on the other hand, children aged 6-14 were more likely to respond that reading is an obligation that their parents mainly force them to do. The number of books read did not change much between 2017 and 2021, and the coronavirus pandemic did not significantly affect the reading of older children and the younger generation. Older children and young people read roughly the same number of books as in 2017. Older children read approximately 7.3 books and teens read 8.9 books per year.

The pandemic negatively impacted magazine reading, with the proportion of non-readers increasing from 15 % in 2017 to 30 % in 2021 for teens and from 14 % to 28 % for older children. Older children read more blogs and articles on the internet and, along with teens, social media posts.

Particularly among teenagers, the proportion of non-regular e-book readers increased compared to 2017 (from 41 % to 54 %), but the number of regular e-book readers remained the same. They mostly use mobile phones to read e-books. Across all age categories, the proportion of spoken word listeners increased significantly compared to 2017. A significant proportion of teenage listeners (43 %) reported that they started listening to spoken word more during the pandemic, with 38 % preferring audio versions rather than books for required reading.

The research was conducted using quantitative and qualitative methods, and the target groups were children aged 6 to 8 years (youngest school children), 9 to 14 years (older children) and young adults aged 15 to 19 years (adolescents). Parents of children aged 6 to 8 years were also surveyed. The research was conducted in cooperation between the National Library of the Czech Republic and the Nielsen Admosphere agency using the CAWI method (online data collection) on a representative sample of 2,040 respondents, based on quota sampling in accordance with the socio-demographic structure of the Czech population.

The full infographic can be downloaded here.

Source: mediaguru.cz