Children´s use of mobile phones - An international comparison 2012 provides a detailed picture of children´s mobile phone behavior across five different countries - Japan, India, Indonesia, Egypt and Chile.
Now in its fourth year, the 2012 study surveyed 4,500 pairs of children and their parents/guardians. It builds on work previously conducted in India, Japan and Egypt, and features Indonesia and Chile for the first time.
Children and mobile phones - the differences across the five countries surveyed and how they relate to mobile phone ownership rates, age of first acquisition, type of handset owned, purchase price and usage charges. To give a short overview of what the study found out, following can be said:
65% of all children surveyed currently use a mobile phone; of those 81% have a new handset.
12 is the most common age for children to get their first mobile phone.
27% of child mobile phone owners have a smartphone. Children´s smartphone ownership in India and Indonesia is double that of their parents.
Children whose parents own smartphones or “featurephones'' are more likely to have one also.
Tablet use is relatively low with 18% penetration in Egypt and Chile, 7% in Indonesia and between 5-7% in Japan and India.
Children´s use of mobile phones - calling, messaging and the use of other features such as cameras and music and video players. Examining children´s mobile internet behaviour:
Initially, children use their mobile phone predominantly for calling; however, as they get older, messaging becomes the preferred choice of communication.
Nearly 24% and 20% of children in Indonesia and India respectively send over 51 messages a day.
54% of all child mobile phone users access the mobile internet; this increases to over 87% when looking exclusively at smartphone users.
70% of all children who use internet through their phone access it at least once a day.
11% of child mobile phone users surveyed list their handset as their primary device for accessing the internet; this increases almost 32% among smartphone users.
Cameras are the most used pre-installed function on mobiles (75%) followed by music players (60%) and movie players (50%).
Apps, social networking and other services - the types of mobile content children access and the apps and social networking services they use. For this chapter, the study concludes:
Of those children who access the internet via their mobile phone, 57% download or use apps; this is highest in Chile (78%) and lowest in Egypt (44%).
Across all countries, entertainment apps are the most popular among children.
Entertainment is the only category of apps that children use more than their parents across all countries.
Information apps have the greatest increase in use as children get older, starting at 18% use for 8-year-olds and rising to 36% at age 18. Although entertainment apps are the most popular, they are the only app category to decline from 90% use at age 10 to 77% at age 18.
49% of children who access the internet via a mobile phone use it for social networking. 45% of these have their profiles set to public; this is as high as 55% among 13-year-olds.
70% of children have met or started to communicate with `new friends´ online.
Parental concerns and digital literacy - why parents give children mobile phones, what their concerns are and how they respond to those concerns. Examining children´s digital literacy, comparing the people whom parents think should be providing digital guidance versus the people children actually ask. On this topic the study found out, that:
Over 70% of parents have concerns about children´s mobile phone use, with viewing inappropriate sites and overuse sharing the highest percentage at around 82%.
Parents whose children use social networking sites are no more concerned about privacy than those whose children don´t.
65% of all parents surveyed set rules on their children´s mobile phone use, but there was no common response to rule-breaking across all countries.
Over 54% of parents who have access to parental control solutions use them; content filters are the most popular control method at 57%.
Almost 67% of parents believe that an adult in the family should educate their children about mobile phone use; this is a consistent preference across all countries.
Mobile technology and children´s wellbeing - the results from the 2012 research along with key findings from a range of other external studies:
Nearly 80% of children surveyed say that having a mobile phone increases their confidence; this is particularly prevalent among children aged 10-13 (above 80%).
63% of all children surveyed feel insecure without their mobile phones; this rises significantly in children aged 16-18 (66-71%).
Despite the popularity of mobile phones, children still talk face-to-face with their parents more than they call or message them.
90% of children who use social networking services on their mobile phones agree that these services reinforce relationships with close friends.
