Thursday, April 24, 2014

One in five children read on a tablet

The majority of children in the UK now live in homes where there is a tablet computer and one in five read using the device, according to a new report from Childwise.

The Childwise Monitor Report 2013-14, which surveys the media consumption of children and teens, said tablets are increasingly the device of choice and that ownership has almost doubled for the second year running. Two in five who took part in the survey said they have their own tablet.

Simon Leggett, associate research director at Childwise, said tablets are popular with young people for two reasons; portability, and the number of applications.

“A tablet doubles up for so many things,” he said. “It can be used for watching television or YouTube because the screen is a good size, but it’s also really easy to carry around.”

Tablets are much more popular than e-readers, which are only used by one in 10 of the children surveyed for the report, but Leggett pointed out that the boundaries between the two are becoming blurred.

“Even though the growth of e-readers isn’t the same as the growth in tablets the difference between the two is getting smaller,” he said.

Every year, the Childwise Monitor Report looks at children’s media consumption, presenting data from children aged 5-16 from across the UK. For this year’s survey, Childwise interviewed 2,415 children from 81 schools; the majority of children taking part aged seven and over answered questions online, those aged 5-6 were interviewed face to face.

In this year’s report, one in six children aged 5-7 said they have a tablet and one in 10 had an e-reader.

In the 8-12 group, four in 10 have a tablet and one in five have an e-reader. And in the 13-16 category, half said they had a tablet and one in six own an e-reader.  


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