62% of children younger than two now watch YouTube, at least occasionally. That’s sharply up from just 45% just five years ago. And 38% of parents let their infants under the age of two play with smartphones, according to a recent Pew research study of 3,054 parents. Only 8% of kids under 12, however, interact with AI chatbots, as far as their parents know.
TV watching is still the most common activity for kids under 12, however. And tablets are more common among kids than smartphones. Interestingly, the poorer parents are, the more likely their kids have smartphones, as middle and upper income parents are much less likely to give their children phones.
Here’s what tech kids under 12 are using, according to the study:
All this time with technology is potentially dangerous, according to experts. Dr. Julie Albright, and USC professor and author of Left To Their Own Devices says that digital technologies can be addicting, just like a slot machine in Vegas.
“Our brains are changing based on this interaction with digital technologies,” Albright told me in a TechFirst podcast. “Our attention spans are lowering.”
Even worse, their brains are developing in unnatural ways.
“What you’ve got now is babies, infants who are growing up in a world of mobility,” Albright says. “So the idea that they have iPads and phones and things: they’re growing up in bassinets with an iPad affixed over their heads, or with a phone or working an iPad before they’re acquiring language. So what that’s doing is rewiring their neuropathways in their brains.”
And that’s linked to mental health challenges down the road as they start to go to school.
Of course, not all usage is heavy usage. There are apps for babies with floating colorful shapes that make noises when tapped, and a few moments of interaction with them is unlikely to be super harmful. But kids are very observant as well, and young children who observe how obsessed us older folks are with our devices are likely to demand more and more time with phones and tablets themselves.
Parents do seem to be keeping their youngers kids off social media, which is a positive. According to the study, only 15% of kids under 12 use TikTok, for example. And 80% of parents say the harms of social media outweight the benefits.
Here’s what social networks they are letting their kids use:
But at the older range of the Pew study, that ramps up significantly: 37% of parents say their 11- to 12-year-old uses TikTok, the study says. Worryingly, 6% says their child under five years of age also uses TikTok.
YouTube is definitely the biggest app for kids usage: 85% of parents of kids under 12 say their kids have watched YouTube, and for half of them, it’s daily use. Perhaps shockingly, 62% of parents with kids under the age of two let their kids watch videos on YouTube.
Little Baby Bum, for example, is a kids’ YouTube channel with nursery rhymes and kids songs with almost 42 million subscribers. Baby Einstein isn’t nearly so popular in terms of subscribers, but a nine-year-old video on the channel on Old MacDonald Had A Farm has almost 130 million views.
More kids are watching YouTube daily: 35% of kids under two and 51% of kids from two to four.
Parently generally understand the risk: 42% say they could be doing a better job, the study says. But we all get tired, and busy, and it’s very easy to give kids an electronic babysitter.
“Even … we [parents] spend too much time on phones,” one told the researchers. "How can we expect a 9-year-old to control and have a balance between their screen time?”