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What are the main interests of 8-12 year old kids from COLOMBIA? Where are they active on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook or other Social Media Channels? On which devices and at what time?
Hola! Thanks for your question about the main interests of 8-12 year old kids from Colombia. The most useful sources I used for finding the answer were the Encuesta de Consumo Cultural (ECC) 2016 and the Encuesta Nacional de Calidad de Vida 2015 (ECV). The short version is I found information on kids aged between 5-11 years old. Over 90% of them watch TV on a daily basis; and over 60% use the internet, mostly through a computer, although they use (but not own) cell phones. I was unable to find information about social media use for that specific age group, but a comprehensive report for people over age 12 showed Snapchat is used by around 7% of Colombians. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
I found the ECC and ECV, which provided a lot of useful hard data regarding children's cultural and digital media activities. I did not find data for children using social media. In international sources like Socialbakers information for Colombia does not include the YouTube kids app, nor many of the available categories. The Colombian government has many useful stats on social media use, mainly in its study on ICT in Colombia. Finally, I used information from a research report that followed children's media use for a three year period, which defined age dependent and age independent profiles that may be useful for this question.
CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
The ECC reports results for two populations: children from 5-11 years old, and people 12 years and older. The information is also segmented by region. They take a survey of children or parents about their assistance and participation in cultural activities. The main analyses refer to cultural events (music, fairs, theater, dance, expositions), reading (magazines, books and newspapers), and audiovisual (movies, TV and radio). It also includes a section on internet, but data does not refer to specific social media platforms.
CULTURAL EVENTS
Children from 5-11 don't attend cultural events, but kid friendly activities are slightly more popular. According to the data, only 28.3% of them went to a theater, dance or opera event. Of these, more girls (30.2%) than boys (26.4%) attended. This was also the subcategory with the most visits from kids within the cultural events category. The next most popular is art expositions or fairs, attended by 22.1% of children in this age range. The next two subcategories are unpopular, with 16.9% of kids attending concerts and musical recitals, and 14.3% going to graphic arts expositions (photography, painting, sculpture, etc.).
As mentioned before, attendance is higher in other more kid friendly shows and venues, although the numbers are still low and represent a minority of children in Colombia. 34.4% of kids attended theme parks, 33.6% went to zoos, parks or natural reservoirs, and 28.4% saw a puppet or story teller show. The only activity above 20% in the remaining subcategories is going to the circus, for which 25.9% of children from 5-11 reported going. In all previously mentioned cases, gender does not significantly change attendance, meaning boys and girls attended this events in a similar proportion.
READING
A large majority of children under 12 in Colombia read books (76.6%), and most of them reported doing so several times a week (43.8%) or everyday (29.2%). Kids also preferred to be read to them mostly by their mothers (66.3%) or their grandparents (12.1%). Magazines are much less preferred, with only 20.7% of kids reporting they read magazines, and those who do engage with them, do it once a week (34.4%) or a few times a week (28.7%). In the case of books, there is practically no difference by gender, although magazines are read in larger proportion by girls (23.4%) than boys (18.2%).
AUDIOVISUAL
Almost all kids from 5-11 years old watch television (96.6%) and they watch everyday (88.8%), or several times a week (10.2%). Radio is on the unpopular side, with only 31.4% of kids listening. Recorded music is slightly more popular, but still below 50%, with only 43.7% of children listening.
MOVIES, VIDEOS, AND VIDEO GAMES
More than half of children between 5 and 11 years old play video games (50.7%) and watch videos (65.3%). In both cases, a larger share of boys engage in these activities, with 60.3% of boys playing video games (vs. 40.8% of girls) and 67.5% of boys watching videos (vs. 63.1% of girls). Both activities are mostly engaged a few times a week for both genders.
Movie theater assistance is more popular than cultural events, but still a minority of children in the age range go to the movies. 47% of both, boys and girls stated they had been to the movies. The ones who do, usually do so every three months (29.3%), or once a month (25.8%).
INTERNET
A majority of kids use the internet regularly (63.6%), and boys do so slightly more than girls, with 65.7% of boys using the internet, compared to 61.4% of girls. The most common activities done on the internet are downloading or playing video games (54.6%) and downloading or streaming movies (52.0%). The gender difference in these cases is interesting, boys engage more with video games (63.6%) than girls (44.7%); while more girls download and stream movies (53.6%) compared to boys (50.6%).
The next most popular online activity is downloading music (44.4%), which is also done more so by girls (47.8%) than boys (41.3%).
DIGITAL MEDIA ACCESS
According to the Encuesta Nacional de Calidad de Vida (ECV), 65% of boys and girls between 5-11 years old have access to a computer. In the case of cell phones, around half of all Colombian children in the same age range have used a cell phone (49.8%), but only 12.4% actually have a device of their own. Girls are slightly more likely to own one (13.2%) than boys (11.6%). The percentage grows exponentially for the next age group reported (12-24 years old), where more than 70% of the people in this age group have a cell phone of their own.
RELEVANT DIGITAL MEDIA RESOURCES
I was unable to find hard data regarding the use of social media in children. The government published a comprehensive report on the use of social media, but the survey considered children 12 and older. As we can see from previous statistics, this age group follows quite different trends than younger children. Relevant stats in this paper show Facebook is the most popular social media network with 70.1% of respondents having an account, followed by WhatsApp (60.1%), YouTube (51.6%), Google+ (36.2%), Instagram (31.5%), Twitter (29.3%), Snapchat (7.2%) and MySpace (6.2%).
The government has a website (En TIC Confío) that includes information, videos and news about social media. From its content, the target audience are teenagers and parents of underage children. Videos and articles recommend teenagers how to behave and how to manage content safely in social media. Parents can also find information on how social media platforms work, how to avoid unsafe use, and a page to denounce abuse and ask for government protection.
Another useful book was published by the Ministry of Culture. It follows over 30 children and monitors their digital media use, including TV and internet. The researchers identified three profiles based on age. Children from 9-11 years old (which is the age of interest for these query) start being independent in their digital media habits, especially diverging from their parents tastes. At these ages, their social activity intensifies, and they start spending more time with their peers, who tend to increase their influence in their interests and activities.
YOUTUBE CHANNELS
I was unable to find age specific information for 8-10 year olds in Colombia, however when searching for popular YouTube channels in Colombia I found a list where I identified channels that are clearly geared toward children:
JULIOPROFE (1,548,933 subscribers): It is a learning channel focusing on maths and physics. It targets schoolage and college age audiences.
TOYCANTANDO (2,482,974 subscribers): The channel is targeted toward younger kids, with animated children song videos. It is also the fifth most popular channel in Colombia.
To wrap it up, I was able to find information for kids aged between 5-11 years old. Over 90% of children watch TV on a daily basis. Over 60% use the internet, mostly through a computer, although they use (but not own) cell phones. Girls are slightly more likely to own a cell phone than boys. They also use the internet to stream and download movies and music, and to a lesser degree, play online games. Boys, on the other hand, use the internet mostly for playing video games, and to a lesser extent, for downloading movies and music. According to research, children of these ages are just beginning to find independence from their parents, they start considering their peers' opinions and begin spending more time with their friends.
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