Nine out of ten, ten year olds have smartphones

Mobile and ipader.Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB scanpix

Still younger and younger children have mobile phones. And almost all children at or above the age of ten years have smartphones, far more than just two years ago.

 

By 2016, 67 percent of children from nine to eleven years of age had their own smartphone, while in 2018 it was 87 percent. This is reflected in the Norwegian Media Authority’s survey: Children and Media 2018.

About half say they spent two hours or more on the mobile daily.

Because so many children have access to smartphones, access to different platforms and media also increases, and it requires understanding and guidance, the Media Authority believes.

– “In an ever-increasing and more opaque and fragmented flow of information, the media demands critical media understanding. This implies that children and young people from an early age need both knowledge and guidance,” says Mari Velsand, Director of Media Authority.

Seven out of ten young people between the ages of 13 and 18 find that they are good at understanding whether the information is true or false, the survey shows. But the Media Authority believes the youth overestimate their own skills.

“Researchers who have followed young people’s actual digital behavior have concluded that both navigation skills and ability to source assessment are at a worryingly low level,” says Mari Velsand.

Media Authority has conducted the survey Children and Media every other year since 2003.

In total, 5,000 children and adolescents between 9 and 18 years old and 2,200 parents answered questions about young people’s media habits.

© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today