Nearly 1 million British children do not have access to the internet at home

"A DIGITAL divide is leaving poorer children at risk of falling behind at school.
Almost one million youngsters are not on the internet at home because their parents cannot afford computers or the cost of web access.
The e-Learning Foundation said ownership of the latest technology is particularly low among single parent families and warned needier youngsters must get online or be left academically disadvantaged.
The charity’s chief executive Valerie Thompson said: “The hundreds of thousands of children growing up in households without internet access often struggle to complete homework, research topics and use online revision tools.
“Without the use of a computer, the attainment gap that characterises children from low income families is simply going to get worse.”
The e-Learning Foundation said the latest analysis of the Family Spending survey shows about one in 12 youngsters, more than 850,000, are not online at home.
It reckons Government schemes to get more PCs into low-income homes have helped to close the gap.
But it warned much more needs to be done to eradicate the divide.
A total of 77% of all households in the UK now own a computer, up from 65% five years ago. And 73% have the internet, a rise from 55%."
Source:  Data from The e-Learning Foundation, reported by The Mirror, 30th December 2011

45% of American 12 year olds have a profile on a social network

"Social networks like Facebook and MySpace are supposed to be limited to people who are ages 13 and up, but this is far from being the case, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which found that nearly half of American 12-year-olds -- 45% -- have profiles on these sites. Assuming the 12-year-old population has remained stable, around 3.96 million since the latest Census projections in 2009, that means 1.78 million 12-year-olds are evading Facebook’s age limits.
These figures, while large, don’t come as much of a surprise following an earlier estimate from Consumer Reports that 7.5 million children under the age of 13 are on Facebook, including five million children under the age of 10. And they’re in line with separate data from Harris Interactive, which found that half of parents with 12-year-olds know that their children are on Facebook. What’s more, seven out of ten of these parents actually actively helped their children evade the security protocols meant to prevent anyone from under age 13 getting on the site."
Source:  Mediapost, 25th November 2011

US Portable Game Software by Revenue 2009-2011

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Source:  Lurry Analytics, NPD Group and other estimates, reported on the Flurry blog, 9th November 2011
Note - I don't normally put projections in, but this contains more real data than projections

Smartphone penetration in the US by age

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Source:  Data from Nielsen reported in NielsenWire, 3rd November 2011
Follow the link for more data in OS shares

Nearly 80% of US kids' spend on entertainment goes on physical goods

"[A]ccording to a study shared by NPD Group, kids between the ages of 2 and 14 in the US still overwhelmingly purchase physical goods.        
That is, 79 percent of their entertainment purchases by value - across all media types - are of the tangible variety.  "For every dollar kids (ages 2-14) spend on entertainment content, $0.79 goes to physical format content and $0.21 goes towards digital format content," the report authors shared with Digital Music News.
Oddly, the stat seems to fit.  In a presentation earlier this year, NPD Group analyst Russ Crupnick reported that 55 percent of music buyers - across all ages - are still solely purchasing CDs, though the broader number of buyers is shrinking. "

Source:  DigitalMusicNews, 18th October 2011

Online game Moshi Monsters has 50m registered users

"Moshi Monsters, the UK based social network aimed at kids that takes many a visual cue from Nintendo's Pokemon series, has hit a landmark 50 million registered users. The figure means that now 1 in 2 UK children aged between 6-12 own a Moshi Monster account, with 1 new sign up every second from over 150 nations across the globe.
Letting kids interact and play online in safe, colourful environment, Moshi Monsters lets kids care and nurture for their own little online monster pet."

Source:  Tech Digest, 6th June 2011

There are 7.5m Facebook users under the age of 13 in the US

"A survey published in the June issue of Consumer Reports found that "of the 20 million minors who actively use Facebook," 7.5 million were younger than 13 and more than five million were younger than 10. Facebook's terms of service require that users be at least 13.
The report tracks with other studies including a 2010 study by McAfee that found 37 percent of 10 to 12 year olds are on Facebook and a study (PDF) released in April from the London School of Economics EU Kids Online project that found that 38 percent of 9- to 12-year-old European children used social-networking sites, with one in five using Facebook, "rising to over 4 in 10 in some countries."
Jeff Fox, technology editor for Consumer Reports, said it was troubling that the survey found "a majority of parents of kids 10 and under seemed largely unconcerned by their children's use of the site." In a press statement, Consumer Reports said that "Using Facebook presents children and their friends and family with safety, security and privacy risks" and that, "In the past year, the use of Facebook has exposed more than five million online U.S. households to some type of abuse including virus infections, identity theft, and--for a million children--bullying.""

Source:  Research by Consumer Reports, reported by CNET, 10th May 2011

Note - while it doesn't explicitly say so, I'm assuming that this is US data only.  With over 600m global users, I'd expect far more than 7.5m to be under 13

TV accounts for 47% of the time American children spend with media

"Television use dwarfs internet use in both the number of children who surf the web and the amount of time they spend on it. The analysis found that during the week, most children spend at least three hours a day watching television, and that television use among preschoolers is the highest it has been in the past eight years. Of the time that children spend on all types of media, television accounts for a whopping 47%.
Heavy television viewing may even be partially responsible for the rising number of children who use the Internet. Parents in one study indicated that more than 60% of children under age three watch video online. That percentage decreases as children get older (the report suggests this is because school-age children have less time at home), but even 8- to 18-year-old children reported in another study that they consume about 20% of their video content online, on cellphones, or on other portable devices like iPods."
Source:  Data from Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Sesame Workshop, reported by Mashable, 14th March 2011

The online & offline habits of teen and tween girls

"Media Habits & Relationships
'Being with friends' (in the real world) is what girls across all age groups (66%) enjoy doing, followed by 'shopping' and 'listening to music'. And when it comes to shortened attention spans, the research shows that a third (30%) of Gen Z girls regularly watch TV shows online for longer than 10 minutes.
Play & Games
Gaming has become a commonplace activity among a relatively new 'casual gamers' user group, but has the market now reached saturation? Not where girls are concerned. Half (49%) of older teens say they never spend time with portable gaming devices or console games. Gaming is more entrenched in younger girls lives, with 35% of 12 and under personally owning a portable gaming device. Social gaming habits, such as playing Farmville, CItyVille, Cafe World and Sims regularly, are prevalent, although vary depending on country: Brazil and Poland top the list (41% and 40%) for girls playing MMOGs (massive multiplayer online games) with Germany and France the lowest (21% and 22%). In the UK, 34% of girls play regularly and in the US the figure is 29%.
Spending Power
Girls like to shop - scoring it as their second favorite activity - but does their lack of plastic hamper their spending money online? It appears not. One in five girls aged 12 and under regularly visit online shopping sites, rising to one in four once they become teenagers. The majority of teenage girls are still buying products on the high street or at a shopping center rather than online, but this shopping medium is far from off limits - 13% of Generation Z girls regularly purchase products online regardless of age.
    Highlights:

    Under 12s
        - 64% use a gaming console
        - Only 35% put listening to music in their top 5 activities
        - More than 60% own a mobile phone
        - More than 60% never read a newspaper
        - Prefer instant messenger to social networks

    13-15 year olds
        - More than 45% say listening to music is one of their favorite
          activities
        - Almost 80% own a mobile
        - YouTube, followed by Facebook, are their favorite social networks
        - 25% regularly visit online shopping sites although only 13%
          Purchase products
        - Begin using mobile web and mobile social networks

    16-18 year olds
        - Most interested in music - nearly 50% list it in their top 5
          activities
        - Nearly 80% own a mobile
        - Are most likely to read newspapers
        - Are least likely to use a gaming console
        - The heaviest media users
        - More likely to use social networks rather than instant messages"
Source:  Press release from Stardoll and Carat, 27th January 2011
About the research
The research was conducted within the virtual world of Stardoll (http://www.stardoll.com), and the total number of respondents was 11,000. The study was conducted in August 2010 using Questback's advance survey tool EasyResearch. Respondents were recruited randomly on Stardoll.com by sending the survey to Stardoll members within the 11 markets (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, UK and US).

Two million children in the UK have no internet connection at home

"More than one million children in Britain live in homes without computers and a further two million have no internet connection at home, a charity said yesterday).
The e-Learning Foundation said it feared the gap between rich and poor pupils' performance at school would widen unless more was done "

Source:  Research by the e-Learning Foundation, reported by The Guardian, 28th December 2010

79% of American mothers are active on social media

"The US-based study found that 79% of all moms with children under the age of 18 were active on social media. The study broadly defines active as someone who currently belongs to a social network, or who reads, writes or comments on blogs.
Marketers will want to perk up for these next results: 23% of these social media moms have purchased a children’s product as a result of a review or recommendation they read on social media. And the most active moms are even more influenced by their online social networks, with 43% of those who log on at least once a day report purchasing based on a review they read online.
Of those who report purchasing a children’s product because of something they read on their social networks, 55% said that this recommendation came directly from a personal review blog – not a corporate-sponsored Twitter account or online advertisement on the side of Google search.
And Facebook is, of course, a huge influencer as well. 40% of the moms who report purchasing something because of what they read online said that the recommendation that drove them to make the purchase came from Facebook."
Source:  Data from NPG Groiup, reported by Social Times, 13th December 2010

3 million new characters are created in Habbo Hotel each month

"Habbo Hotel has just joined the exclusive club of websites that can claim ten years online. The public beta of the first incarnation, Hotelli Kultakala, rolling out on 28 August 2000, followed by the English-language beta on 16 January 2001. The combined platform now claims 170 million users in 11 countries.
Some Habbo stats, as of last month:
• 172m avatars created
• 3m new characters created each month
• 120m user-created rooms
• 15m monthly unique users
• Average user session is 42 minutes"
Source:  The Guardian, 5th July 2010

Club Penguin is the most popular virtual world among EU kids aged 7-10

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Source: Dubit, reported by the Kzero Worldwide blog, 8th April 2010

US teens text ten times an hour

"Nielsen analyzes more than 40,000 mobile bills every month to determine what consumers actually are spending their money on. The results are staggering: American teenagers are using 3,146 messages a month, which translates into more than 10 messages every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school. Even the under 12 segment are sending 1,146 messages per month, which is almost four text messages per waking hour that they are not at school.
While the 13-17 year old age bracket is already highly saturated, the last holiday season was good to the under 12 segment when it came to text messaging. A full 8 percent increase in SMS usage was measured combined with a near doubling in text message volume for that segment in the following quarter (Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are late in December, so usage increases will be recorded in Q1)."
Source: Research by Nielsen, reported on their blog, 27th January 2010

24 million young Chinese are addicted to the internet

"The number of young Chinese addicted to the Internet leaped to 24 million last year, a survey showed, as state media and some Chinese parents fret over social ills said to be linked to the Web.
Online games are often seen as a main cause of Internet obsession among adolescents in China, and state media have blamed them for contributing to problems as wide-ranging as teen pregnancy and violent crime.
The number of Web-addicted youths was nearly double the figure from 2005, and accounted for one in seven young Internet users, the state-run newspaper China Daily said Wednesday, citing a survey by the China Youth Association for Network Development. Nearly half of the young people surveyed use the Web to play games, the report said."
Source: Survey by the China Youth Association for Network Development, reported by China Daily, and then by PCWorld, 3rd February 2010

American kids spend an average of 49 minutes per day listening to music, playing games, or watching TV on their phones

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Source: Page 19 of Generation M2 - Media in the Lives of 8 to 18 Year Olds, The Kaiser Foundation, Janaury 1010
It's a free 85 page report - highly recommended!

Mobile phone ownership among American kids, by age

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Source: Page 18 of Generation M2 - Media in the Lives of 8 to 18 Year Olds, The Kaiser Foundation, Janaury 1010
It's a free 85 page report - highly recommended!

23% of parents of kids in the UK aged 10 or under said that they allow the child unsupervised internet access

"A [...] survey of more than 1,000 parents found that almost a quarter (23%) said they had, or would, allow their child of 10 or under to have unsupervised access to the internet on a home computer.
Almost four in 10 (38%) said they had, or would, allow a child aged 10 or under to have their own mobile phone, while one in 10 said they would allow a child under eight to have their own mobile."
Source: BMRB (British Market Research Bureau) poll of 1,163 parents of children aged eight to 14 in England during October, reported by The Daily Telegraph, 16th November 2009

68 Percent of Saudi girls drop their last name on Facebook

"Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat - Are you on Facebook under your real name? This is the question that continues to haunt a large number of Saudi Arabian women, despite the fact that internet social networking sites rely primarily on factual personal information. However a recent study carried out in Saudi Arabia shows that 68 percent of Saudi girls prefer to withhold their family name due to the sensitivity of this information, in comparison to just 32 percent of girls who appear on Facebook under their own full names. The study revealed that 16 percent of girls polled were members of Facebook under aliases or false identities. As for the Saudi Arabian boys who use Facebook, the study showed that 60 percent of those questioned were members of Facebook under their own full name, with just 4 percent appearing under an alias or a false name."
Source: Asharq Alawsat, 19th January 2010

The average age for US kids to first acquire digital content is 7

"Forty-one percent of kids who own some form of digital content said music was the first type of content they downloaded, with 38 percent saying it was game downloads. The average age at which kids make their first digital acquisition is 7 years old. Girls in particular turn to single song downloads when they first foray into music, and their predisposition for music also makes them slightly more likely than boys to first get ringtones.
"Forty-three percent of digital downloaders were six years old or younger when they acquired their first digital content," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "Since parents are the first touch point for children this age, it is important for companies to develop marketing strategies that reach parents as well as kids.""
Source: Press release from NPD, 5th January 2010