A quarter of 8-12 year olds have a social networking profile

A quarter of children aged 8-12 who use the internet at home say they have a profile on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace, despite these sites having a minimum user age of 13, according to new research from Ofcom.

The report also includes internet audience data which showed that amongst 5-7 year old home internet users, just over a third (37%) visited Facebook in October 2009 (but did not necessarily have a profile).

Downloading or watching TV programmes or films on the internet has increased by 4 percentage points in the past year by children aged 8-15 who use the internet at home (from 17% in 2008 to 21% in 2009).

At the same time, 44% of 12-15 year olds say they think that downloading shared copies of films and music for free should not be illegal, with 18% saying they don’t know and 38% saying it should be illegal.

Ofcom also reports that BARB viewing data shows that mainstream entertainment pgrogrammes such as The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent were the most viewed programmes among children aged 10-15 in 2009.