Facebook now a ‘must have’ for children, with 1m seeking daily fix

JOINING Facebook has become “a rite of passage” for British children, with almost one million seven to 12-year-olds visiting the site each day, experts have said.

A wide-ranging survey of children’s lives found that social networking had become a key aspect of growing up, with sites including Facebook, Twitter and Disney’s Club Penguin the most popular.

The study, which was carried out by market research firm Mintel, found that half of all children aged seven to 12 across the UK visit social networking sites, with about one million of those children logging on to Face- book daily.

The findings led one children’s charity to brand parents who allow access to Facebook – which has a minimum age requirement of 13 – as “irresponsible”.

But others agreed with Mintel’s own assessment that joining Facebook had become a “rite of passage” for many children, helping them connect with their peers.

According to the research, just 5 per cent of children claim never to use social networking sites, with Facebook use most common among girls aged between ten and 12. Twitter and Club Penguin were the next most popular sites after Facebook, but the frequency of visits to those sites was much lower, with only 9 per cent of children who use social networks visiting them every day.

Ina Mitskavets, senior lifestyles analyst at Mintel, said: “Being the digital natives, today’s children are well versed in all aspects of technology and the internet.

“Perhaps joining Facebook is viewed as a rite of passage into secondary school and an absolute must-have for entering the social scene and maintaining social circles.

“Friends’ acceptance is an important factor driving social network adoption, but peer influence is also essential in new product discovery, especially for games, electronic gadgets, music and films.”

Anastasia de Waal, chairwoman of the children’s charity Family Lives, said there was growing evidence to show that younger Facebook users were going online to connect with existing school friends, rather than meet anyone new.

She said: “Social networking is becoming pervasively popular and a key element in that is that children are using particular sites that their friends are using.

“They are adapting these websites and using them to send their friends messages – it’s different from how they are being used by adults.

“We need to be careful with monitoring these websites – it’s not the same as your children playing in the back yard where you can keep an eye on them. But it certainly seems that the people children are in contact with online are people they would be in contact with anyway in their daily lives.”

However, Ms de Waal said it appeared there had been an increase in cyber-bullying, with some children using the “sense of distance” that came with being online to behave in a way they would not in the playground.

Peter Bradley, deputy director of anti-bullying charity Kidscape, said parents who allowed children as young as seven to use Facebook were being “irresponsible”.

He said: “Facebook is for 13-year-olds and upwards. There is a suggestion from Facebook that they may remove the age restriction, but we would not condone that.

“Why on earth should children between the ages of seven and 12 be encouraged to use Facebook?

“It’s the responsibility of parents and teachers on how best to educate children, but parents should be encouraging children to do other things.”

Elsewhere, the study found that the average weekly pocket money now stands at £6.47.

For boys, that money tends to be spent on food, games and going out, while girls also spend the money on their appearance and on magazines and comics.

Perhaps worryingly for parents during the run-up to Christmas, the study found that “kidfluencing” or “pester power” helps children get what they want.

The survey said that more than 60 per cent of children display a “certain degree of influence” in getting their parents to buy them the things they want, although boys find it harder to make their parents cave into their demands than their female counterparts.

More than two-thirds of children recognised the importance of being fit and healthy, with younger boys attributing the highest importance and older girls the lowest.

However, the research revealed that children only spend 14 per cent of their time doing sports or hobbies and only a third said they could not live without exercise or sports.

Mintel’s research also found that children spend nearly a fifth of their waking hours watching TV – an average of about three hours and five minutes a day.

The study said TV advertisements were most effective when it came to informing children about new products, with more than half learning about new music and films from TV ads, and about half citing advertising they see on TV when learning about new games, electronic gadgets and snacks and sweets.