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What are the main interests of 8-12 year old kids from MEXICO? Where are they active on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook or other Social Media Channels? On which devices and at what time?
Hi there! Thanks for asking for more information on social media use by children aged 8-12 years old in Mexico, particularly insights around their use of Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube. The short version is that after searching extensively through industry reports, government and non-profit reports, academic databases, and trusted media sites in both English and Spanish, I've determined that the precise statistics you requested are not publicly available for a few reasons: 1. there is very little research on the use of the internet by users under the age of 15, 2. Facebook and Snapchat both require their users to be at least 13 years of age, and 3. some of the most relevant reports published within the last three years rely on even older data. However, I was able to learn the most popular platforms in Mexico by category across all ages, as well as limited data on the use of devices and the internet by children aged 6-14. You will find a deep dive of my methodology and research below.
METHODOLOGY
After searching exhaustively, I have not been able to find any data to prove the usage rates of Facebook, YouTube, or SnapChat by Mexican children aged 8-12. While I was able to find statistics around the popularity of each of these services in Mexico, none of these sources provided usage data of these services amongst children ages 8-12. Given that both Facebook and Snapchat require their users to be at least 13 years of age, it is likely that there is no data collected on the possible use of these platforms by users younger than the required age.
While I could not find a direct answer to your question, I was able to find a wealth of relevant information that I think might be helpful for your project. I will present these findings in the following sections: DIGITAL USE IN MEXICO (ALL AGES), MOST POPULAR SERVICES BY CATEGORY, DEVICE USE BY AGE, INTERNET USE BY AGE.
DIGITAL USE IN MEXICO (ALL AGES)
According to WeAreSocial's Digital in 2016 report, 46.9% of people in Mexico, or 60 million persons, are both active internet users and active social media users. Facebook is the most popular social platform in the country.
While 82% of Mexican adults own a mobile phone, only 55% own a smartphone. Only 39% of the total population of Mexico are mobile internet users.
Internet consumption by adults in Mexico is highest amongst PC or tablet users. Only 28% of the population watches videos on mobile devices.
As of March 2015, Android is responsible for 82.5% of mobile OSes used in Mexico, with iOS coming in second at just 10.3%. Samsung manufactures 22.8% of mobile devices used in Mexico, followed by Motorola at 14.8%, LG at 12.9%, Apple at 10.3%, Sony at 8.3%, and "Others" at 31.6%.
MOST POPULAR SERVICES BY CATEGORY
In 2014, Facebook was the most popular platform in Mexico, followed by YouTube. More recent data allows us to identify the most popular services by category, as follows:
Messaging: WhatsApp is both the most popular messaging app in the world and the most popular messaging app in Mexico specifically.
I could not find any data on how Snapchat ranks in Mexico as compared to these other services. The most relevant Snapchat data I could find for Mexico comes from Q4 12014, showing that only 3% of mobile users in Mexico used Snapchat.
DEVICE USE BY AGE
According to a late 2014 publication from UNICEF, which unfortunately relies on data from 2012, 23% of Mexican children aged 6-12 use a mobile phone and 52% use a computer.
eMarketer predicted in early 2015 that the number of smartphone users in Mexico aged 12-34 would reach 21.8 million that year, accounting for 63.7% of smartphone users in the country (21.8/34.2).
eMarketer also offers a paywalled report which contains a chart on smartphone user penetration by age in Mexico from 2014 to 2020 projections, which you might be interested in purchasing.
INTERNET USE BY AGE
According to that same 2014 publication from UNICEF, in 2012
However, 2014 data reveals that the average age for a child of internet users in Mexico to start using the internet is 10 years old, with 41% of those children beginning to use the internet between the ages of 7 and 14, followed by ages 3-6 with 36%, ages 12-17 at 21%, 18-24 at 9%, and 25+ at 1%. 50% of these kids begin using the internet for entertainment, while 48% begin using the internet for school purposes.
According to a 2015 ComScore report, 15% of online users in Mexico are children aged 6-14. However, ComScore data from 2014 found that only 10.1% of visitors to social media sites in Mexico are children aged 6-14.
ComScore's Futuro Digital Mexico 2015 report found that amongst Mexican children aged 6-14, girls watch less online videos than boys, with girls watching just 177 million minutes of video vs. boys consuming 338 million minutes. Across all ages, Mexicans consume an average of 162 videos per user per month.
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, after searching extensively through industry reports, government and non-profit reports, academic databases, and trusted media sites in both English and Spanish, I've determined that the precise statistics you requested are not publicly available for a few reasons: 1. there is very little research on the use of the internet by users under the age of 15, 2. Facebook and Snapchat both require their users to be at least 13 years of age, and 3. some of the most relevant reports published within the last three years rely on even older data. However, I learned that Facebook is the most popular social media platform for Mexicans across all age groups, while YouTube is the most popular entertainment channel. Children aged 6-14 account for 15% of all online users in Mexico, but just 10.1% of traffic to social media sites. Amongst this age group, boys spend more time watching online videos than do girls.
I hope this helps! Thanks for asking Wonder. Please let us know if we can help with anything else!