The number of children who personally own a tablet has almost doubled year on year, according to new research from Ofcom.
Among children aged between 5 and 15, 34% have their own tablet, rather than using devices belonging to their parents or school – up from 19% in 2013.
62% of children use a tablet at home, compared with 42% in 2013, with the research revealing that 11% of children aged between three and four currently have their own tablet device.
Twice as many children aged 5-15 are using a tablet to go online (42% compared with 23% in 2013), which Ofcom states could have implications for the future use of laptops and PCs.
For the first time, the proportion of children accessing the internet on a PC, laptop or netbook fell by three percentage points year on year to 88%.
The research also revealed that the popularity of the tablet could be contributing to the declining number of children with a TV set in their bedroom, which has decreased by a third over the past five years to 46%.
In contrast, the proportion of children watching TV on a tablet has risen by a third in a year to 20% (up from 15% in 2013) while 33% watch on-demand TV.
Despite the decline of TV sets in the bedroom, children still say that they would miss TV (34%) more than other popular devices (17% for mobile, 15% for tablets and 11% for games console). However, older children aged 12-15 are twice as likely to miss their mobile phone compared to TV (37% and 18%, respectively).
Ofcom found that children aged 5-15 also spend more time watching TV every week (14.6 hours) than doing any other media activity, although there has been a decrease since 2013 when it was 15.4 hours.
In terms of other devices, the proportion of children with games consoles in their bedrooms has also declined over the past year – down -6% to 41%. Conversely, an increasingly number of children are playing games on their tablet – up 7% year on year to 30%.
Over the past five years, the proportion of children that have radios in their bedroom has halved, down from 32% in 2009 to 14% in 2013; however, this has remained stable over the last year.
