Research Shows Large Number Of Toddlers Online

Introducing Toddler 2.0.

Young children are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, a new study finds. Recent research shows 23 percent of parents with children under five say that their children use the Internet. Of those plugged-in toddlers, 82 percent reportedly go online once a week.*

These surprising figures come from a report by the Sesame Workshop's Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a nonprofit organization focused on the advancement of children's literacy through new technologies. The Cooney Center pulled their data from seven studies that examined the media habits of children.

So what are these tech-savvy tikes doing online? According to the Cooney Center's report, 60 percent of children younger than three are watching videos, and 30 percent are using video chat.

"Knowing that a child uses the Internet mostly to Skype with a relative in another state versus using the Web to engage in solitary game play, gives us a much better sense of what a child is doing and may be getting from the experience than just knowing that he or she is using the Internet," researcher Jennifer Kotler wrote in a post on the Cooney Center Blog.

Television is still the leading form of media consumed by kids. According to the report, most children watch three hours of TV on weekdays and 4 hours on the weekend. Some of these TV-watchers are also multitasking. Data from a 2010 Nielsen study, included in the Cooney report, show that 36 percent of children aged two to 11 years old watch TV and use the Internet simultaneously.

Although young children are consuming more media than ever before, they are spending roughly the same amount of time reading traditional books. Ninety percent of children between the ages of five and nine engage with printed materials every day, the Cooney Center reports.

The Center concludes that cellphones, video games, portable music players, television and computers are important developmental tools for children, especially when a balance is struck between entertainment, education and physical activity.

*These data did not appear in the original study and were released by the Sesame Workshop as a clarification.

[USA Today via The Week]

Comments

[ohxpress]

04:44 PM on 03/20/2011

I have a cat that likes to sit on my laptop if I leave it unattended. I even have a picture of it playing with the mouse (not a joke, but it sure sounds like one!) If I send it in, will HP pay me money for an article that cats are online, too? We can even make the headline grab attention if we say it's surfing for "kitty porn" to draw in readers. What do you say?

[Red45]

01:44 AM on 03/21/2011

My cat Mijo loves to surf the net on my laptop but only when I'm holding it in my lap. He finds things on the net I would have never thought of.

[Indra]

12:44 PM on 03/19/2011

This article is sick.

[Tracy Campbell Bender]

03:58 PM on 03/18/2011

Whoever calls these findings "surprising" clearly doesn't have any young kids. My 5 1/2 year old has been playing (age appropriate) games and watching (G-rated) videos online for about 3 years, and she can use an iPhone WAY better than I can!

[Matthew Rowe]

01:36 PM on 03/18/2011

This sounded funny to me untill I realized my 2 year old knows how to use my ipod touch to search youtube and watch segments of here favorite TV shows with no help whatsoever...sorry for the run-on sentence

[Aldo Rodriguez]

11:02 AM on 03/18/2011

"Have you seen Junior's grades?!" - "And the Cradle Will Rock..." by Van Halen

[Jack Davies]

01:52 PM on 03/18/2011

Yep. They have gone up thanks to the wealth of resources the net provides. At least my kids' have.

[NicoPicoRico]

10:39 AM on 03/18/2011

i'm pretty sure thats a pic of a baby not a toddler.

[Gronkie]

10:22 AM on 03/18/2011

I thought we knew this already. That E-trade baby and his friends have been surfing the net for years.

[primarycircularreactions]

08:15 AM on 03/18/2011

So, according to Sesame, cell phones are "important developmental tools for children."

Isn't it relevant that Sesame has a business partnership with Nokia and that Sesame sells their own iPhone apps?

http://www.sesameworkshop.org/newsandevents/pressreleases/nokiacontest_010710
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/sesame-street/id339077104

[wilray]

05:40 AM on 03/18/2011

gaa-gaa goo-goo dada.

[Lahonda]

03:19 AM on 03/18/2011

My daughter played "Quake II" at age 9 - she rocked the crowd.

[pgurlatl]

09:44 PM on 03/17/2011

I have a nearly 2 year old nephew that is a daredevil but will sit still mashing the keyboards if I direct him to to the peekaboo game on www.kneebouncers.com.

It's better than him trying to fly off the top of the crib.

[Dadeo]

07:56 PM on 03/17/2011

James O'Keefe tried a hidden video with a couple of these toddlers but got out smarted.

[Fuddpacker]

06:20 PM on 03/17/2011

THIS JUST IN....

Research show large number of HP posters act like toddlers....

*Tend to throw fits and hold their breath until blue when someone disagrees with them...
*Hates peas, spinach and real facts....
*Makes pronouncements such as "takes one to know one", "you're a pansy Republican/Democrat/liberal/commiepinko/and other labels....
*Hurls insults at anyone with a divergent view...
*Need their diaper changed frequently - both on their head and on their butt...
*Tend to form small groups that exclude anyone of a different race, color, creed or belief....
*Watch FauxNews compulsively...

OK, I've had my rant...I feel better now... :-)

[TexasDem0]

05:54 PM on 03/17/2011

I've noticed that some of them are posting comments here.

[Artos]

02:09 PM on 03/17/2011

It's really hard to hack their computers too, especially when you don't understand, "Goo goo gah gah lingo." These toddlers have it going for them, no need to have excessive amounts of encryption of data.