The number of American children between ages two and 11 who go online totaled nearly 16 million in May 2009 and comprised 9.5% of the active internet-using universe in the US.
According to data from Nielsen Online, there also has been a 63% increase since 2004 in the amount of time this group spends online.
The time spent online among US children ages 2-11 increased from nearly 7 hours in May 2004 to more than 11 hours online in May 2009. Time spent among kids also outpaced the increase for the overall population, which grew 36% in the last five years, Nielsen said.
Online video viewing among 2-11 year-olds was split evenly between boys and girls, with 5.1 million boys and 5.2 million girls viewing video online in May. However, online video consumption between boys and girls is not as even. In May 2009, boys led in viewing and time spent, consuming 61% of video streams among children and 57% of the time spent viewing videos.
comScore data published last month showed that total US internet users viewed 16.8 billion online videos during April, representing a 16% month on month increase (see US internet users view 17bn online videos in April).
According to Nielsen’s @Plan Summer 2009 data, 26.3% of the online adult population, or 38.2 million individuals, have children 11 years old or younger in the household – a 7% increase from Summer 2008.
Online adults with children under age 12 in the household are 1.7 times more likely to purchase a digital camcorder and 1.5 times more likely to purchase groceries online than average.
Recent research from The Media Audit revealed that the average US adult has nearly doubled their daily use of the internet as the average US adult spent 2.1 hours per day online in 2006, compared to 3.8 hours in 2008 (see Average US adult doubles daily internet use).
