Feb 8, 2024

Youtube, Roblox, Tiktok Dominate Children's Screen Time, New Study Finds

Parents have long relied on screens of all shapes and sizes to keep their children occupied, entertained, and sometimes educated. However, the way children use screens is constantly changing, and content creators need to be aware of where viewers' attention is directed.

A new report from Qustodio (available here as a PDF) shows that today's kids spend more time gaming, surfing social media sites, and watching free streaming platforms than they do paid streaming like Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video and free streaming platforms, rather than paid streaming such as Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video.

The data used in this study was collected from over 400,000 families with children ages 4 to 18 worldwide. The study tracks which platforms are most popular with children in 2023 and how much time they spend on them. Notably, the study tracks in-app use of many platforms, and other access methods, such as via web browsers, are not included in the final data. Nevertheless, the report provides a good insight into how children are spending their time on screens.

According to the report, children worldwide spent 27% more time streaming in 2023 than in 2022. Globally, children spent an average of 57 minutes/day on streaming content, compared to 64 minutes/day in the United States.

Youtube was the most popular streaming service worldwide and in all regions analyzed by this study. According to the report, 63% of children used Youtube in each of the last two years; in 2023, the time spent by children on both Youtube and Youtube Kids increased: Youtube Kids jumped from 84 minutes/day to 96 minutes/day and Youtube from 67 minutes/day to 70 minutes/day, a sharp increase from 67 minutes/day to 70 minutes/day. [Paid platforms did not fare much better. In fact, Netflix was the only paid service to increase in popularity from 2022 to 2023, while Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+ all fell.

Netflix grew in popularity last year, but users spent less time on the app: in 2022, children watched Netflix for 48 minutes per day; last year they watched only 46 minutes per day. Other paid platforms saw more substantial declines, which can be tracked in the chart below.

Despite declining in popularity and time spent in 2023, Roblox remained the king of children's games. Last year, 48% of children played the game for an average of 130 minutes a day, which may seem like a lot at two hours a day, but is a significant decrease from the past two years, when children averaged nearly three hours a day.

Roblox was not the only game to see a decline in 2023. All six games tracked in the study saw a decrease in the amount of time children spent playing them. In addition, most games saw a decline in popularity, and even those that did not saw a decline in popularity saw only a slight increase. Nevertheless, games like "Roblox" and "Minecraft" are far ahead of streaming games in terms of taking up children's free time.

Tiktok was and remains the most popular social media platform for children: in 2023, 44% of children spent an average of 112 minutes on the app; in terms of time spent per day, no other platform comes close to Tiktok's right; in terms of time spent per day, Tiktok is the most popular social media platform for children. While the number of children using Tiktok has remained relatively stable year over year, the amount of time they spend on the platform has increased.