Young people are increasingly accessing the Internet from their own device at an earlier age. This is according to the study ‘The use of technology by minors in Spain’ prepared by the National Observatory of Technology and Information Society (ONTSI)which establishes that 70% of minors already own a cell phone with Internet access.
53% of minors have used the Internet for school work in the last three months
The average age of access to a cell phone is 11 years old. This is not the only conclusion provided by the report, which makes an exhaustive x-ray of how minors access new technologies and how they use them.
According to the study, 98% of children between 10 and 15 years old connect to the Internet on a regular basisand 53% have carried out some educational activity over the Internet in the last three months.
For example, the report also details the role and way in which parents react to this reality. For example, it points out that 48% of parents use parental control applications to protect their children on the Internet.
In addition, 90% of parents say they have had a conversation with their children to establish ‘online’ behavioral norms of the youngest children. On the other hand, 45% of parents admit that they regularly check their children’s Internet search history to find out what content they have access to and with whom they converse on the Internet.
In fact, thanks to these activities, 51% of parents ensure that children make use of the electronic devices with which they connect to the Internet under their supervision through a shared and conscious use by both parties.
In this sense, both parents and children agree on the importance of monitoring the use and time spent online, to avoid certain overexposure to the Internet. Thanks to these parental control apps, it is possible to restrict online purchases made by the child, block the content of downloads that are not appropriate for their age, or prevent access to certain web pages.