Number of kids watching online videos soars: Survey

WASHINGTON: In today’s growing digital world era everyone has been equally atracted to gadgets and streaming services.

The number of young Americans watching online videos every day has more than doubled, according to survey findings released on Tuesday. They’re glued to them for nearly an hour a day, twice as long as they were four years ago.

And oten, the survey found, they’re seeing the videos on services such as Youtube that are supposedly off limits to children younger than age 13.

“It really is the air they breathe,” said Michael Robb, senior director of research for Common Sense Media, the nonprofit organisation that issued the report.

The group tracks young people’s tech habits and offers guidance for parents.

The survey of American youth included the responses of 1,677 young people, ages 8 to 18. Among other things, it found that 56% of 8- to 12-year-olds and 69% of 13- to 18-year-olds watch online videos every day.

In 2015, the last time the survey was conducted, those figures were 24% and 34%, respectively. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Overall screen time hasn’t changed much in those four years, the survey found.

The average tween, ages 8 to 12 for the purposes of this survey, spent four hours and 44 minutes with entertainment media on digital devices each day. For teens, it was seven hours and 22 minutes.

That did not include the time using devices for homework, reading books or listening to music.

But the findings on video-watching indicate just how quickly this generation is shiting from traditional television to streaming services, oten viewed on smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Among the teens surveyed, only a third said they enjoyed watching traditional television programming “a lot,” compared with 45% four years ago. Half of teens said the same, compared with 61% in the last survey.