Minors spend about four hours a day ‘glued’ to the screens, outside the classroom, the equivalent of two months a year, giving preference to social networks such as TikTok over communication applications such as WhatsApp.
These data were extracted from a study carried out by the Qustodio platform, specialized in security and digital control for families that has more than four million users worldwide.
This platform analyzes the use that minors make of the Internet every year: the hours they spend in front of screens, the applications and networks they use the most or the consequences that hyperconnectivity can cause.
The study analyzed trends and the use of screens by minors between the ages of 4 and 18 in four countries – Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia – with some 400,000 families participating anonymously, according to data provided by the platform and quoted by the Efe agency.
The person in charge of this platform, Eduardo Cruz, highlighted this Wednesday, during the presentation of the study to the press, the importance of adopting a “digital diet” to take advantage of the Internet and screens and try to avoid their risks and threats. .
Among the main recommendations and advice for minors to make responsible and non-abusive use of the screens, Cruz mentioned the importance of establishing a “technological schedule”, talking about digital environments, preventing children from locking themselves in their rooms to use the screens, sharing digital content with the family, offering attractive alternatives in the physical or “real” world and making older people lead by example.
Eduardo Cruz also highlighted the importance of establishing schedules without connectivity and ensuring that the screens do not subtract time or space from other activities, such as sleep, study or leisure.
Hyperconnectivity or continuous connection is becoming a serious problem in many cases and generating addiction problems for countless minors who end up understanding the “physical” or real world as “a nuisance” in their lives, he warned.
Among the most relevant data, it should be noted that 15.6% of the families that have participated in the study recognize that the abuse of screens causes them problems in their day-to-day lives at home, and that these conflicts are repeated once or twice a week in 34% of cases. the houses
Social networks once again became the main digital attraction for minors in 2022, an indicator that is repeated in the four countries where the study was carried out.
Tik Tok clearly stands out among the smaller social networks such as Instagram, increasingly used by people over 30 and 40, Snapchap, Facebook or Twitter.
On the other hand, in Spain the use of messaging and communication applications, such as WhatsApp, decreased last year and the time that minors spend in these environments went from 30 minutes on average in 2021 to 24 minutes last year.
Among video games, the most popular continues to be Roblox in the four countries, and the time that minors spend daily on this game exceeds two hours, according to the data collected in the study.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, the use of educational tools on the Internet continued to decline and only one of these platforms, Smartick, continued to increase the time spent on it among minors, reaching an average of 29 minutes a day.
Among online video platforms, Prime Video had a big advantage among minors, although it still trails Netflix and YouTube, which remains the favorite among young people to watch videos in all four countries.
Twitch, which grew 150% in 2020, the year of confinement, again registered a slight decline last year.
Source: TSF
