Latin American children leave TV aside and prefer to play games and watch series on the internet

Minors mainly consume social networks, streaming series and online games.

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According to an analysis by AsKids, an organization that conducts market research in the segment of children and adolescents, children up to 8 years of age use YouTube in its Kids version, between 8 and 13 years of age.

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Other interests are video games, streaming series and movies, and YouTube. The study also revealed other interesting data:

- Social networks have become the main way children and adolescents relate to each other, as 87% of them use them.
- One of the main sources of digital entertainment for minors are videos on YouTube, 76% of respondents use the platform.
- When it comes to using the TV, national and cable broadcasting is no longer used as much if compared to watching series and movies on different streaming platforms, 67% of minors use their home TV sets to watch paid content.
- Sixty-five percent of children and adolescents use video games either on consoles or cell phones as a way to entertain themselves in their free time.
- In adolescence, i.e. between 13 and 18 years of age, what is most consumed on the Internet are social networks and streaming platforms to watch series.

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Despite the above data, and the fact that communication and information technologies have become a way for people to entertain themselves, some activities not related to screens continue to be very frequent among minors, such as dancing, playing sports or drawing.
Another fact is that as children grow up, the consumption of digital content is increasing, reaching its peak in adolescence where 70% of free time is allocated to the use of the Internet for activities in social networks, streaming or other proposals.

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In terms of series and movies, the streaming platform most used by minors in Latin America is Netflix. Disney+ has been increasing its consumption as well as other emerging services.

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On the video game side, according to the asKids study, between 3 and 5 years of age they are used by 43% of the population, from 6 to 12 years, 71% and from 13 to 18 years, 70% of people. In addition, male children are more interested in video games than females.

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As for the devices through which they consume their content, the cell phone is the most used device between 13 and 17 years old, 85% of adolescents have one. Younger children watch their content on smart TVs.

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Mexico is one of the countries in the region where more children consume content on the Internet, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in Mexico 50 percent of people between 6 and 11 years old are users of the Internet or a computer and in the case of adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, the percentage is 80% to 94%.

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Another curious case is Colombia, where according to the study "Childhood, adolescence and audiovisual media in Colombia: appropriation, uses and attitudes", conducted by the Colombian Communications Regulatory Commission, cell phones are the device most used by minors and adolescents between 14 and 17 years old spend more time on the Internet with 102 minutes on average per day. And finally, Colombian children chat, use video games, surf the Internet, talk on cell phones, take pictures and interact with other children on social networks.