Kids' expanding time online

The time children aged 2-11 spend online has grown 63% in the past five years, MEDIAWEEK reports, citing Nielsen Online figures. They spent seven hours a month online in 2004, compared to 11 hours online now, "with boys spending slightly more time on average than girls (7% more this past May)." Of course, everybody's online time has grown since 2004; the average Web user is spending 36% more time online now. The number of kids using the Web has grown too - by 18%, compared to the 10% growth in the number of all Web users, all ages. This past May, the 2-to-11-year-old age category reached 16 million, or 9.5% of the active online universe, Nielsen added. "That growth spurt is particularly noteworthy, since it happened during a period where the number of kids under 14 in the US declined by 1% ... per the U.S. Census Bureau." I think a good part of the explanation is the growth in virtual worlds, with kids 5-9 being the fastest-growing age group in a recent study about that (see this).

More Internet, less family time?

Not necessarily, but while a just-released study doesn't come out and blame the Internet, one of its lead researchers seems to. The latest release of the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future's longitudinal survey found that 28% of Americans say they're spending less time with their families, up from 11% in 2006, according to an Associated Press report in Yahoo Tech. It was citing the 2009 edition of a survey Annenberg (at the University of Southern California) has been conducting annually since 2000. "The decline in family time coincides with a rise in Internet use and the popularity of social networks, though [the] study stopped just short of assigning blame," the AP reports. However, the respondents "did not report spending less time with their friends." As for their views of time spent online: In 2000, 11% of the 2,000+ respondents (ages 12 and up) said that family members under 18 were spending too much time online. By 2008, the latest study, that figure had grown to 28%. It also found that higher-income families reported "greater loss of family time" than lower-income ones, and "more women than men said they felt ignored by a family member using the Internet." Center senior fellow Michael Gilbert does seem to single out the Internet more than other technologies, such as TV and cellphones, as problematic, though, as the AP paraphrases him as saying that the Net "is so engrossing, and demands so much more attention than other technologies, that it can disrupt personal boundaries in ways other technologies wouldn't have." Here's Annenberg's report page.