Kids under 13 prefer face-to-face play: Study

“Playreport,” a new Ikea-sponsored survey of parents and kids (7-12) in 25 countries found that “kids overwhelmingly prefer playing with their parents (73%) over watching TV and using the Internet.” They even more overwhelmingly prefer playing with their friends (89%), but parents did come in second, with Internet and TV coming in a distant 3rd and 4th (14% and 11%, respectively). The children were asked, “If you could only do one thing this weekend which would you choose?” Watching TV beat Internet use by 4 percentage points (52%-48%); playing with friends beat watching TV 89% to 11%; playing with friends beat using the Net 86% to 14% (I don’t think the researchers were including in virtual worlds, but kids in some countries might have folded that in); and playing with parents beat watching TV 73% to 37%. In all the countries in the study, the average online parent plays with his or her child(ren) for two hours a day, according to the survey. Parents surveyed in Australia, China, Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, and the US all said they play with their children more than 15.5 hours a week, and those in Belgium, Denmark, France, Japan, and Netherlands said they do so for 13 hours or less every week. The survey polled 7,933 online parents and 3,116 online children in Russia, China, Japan, the US, Canada, Australia, and 19 countries in eastern and western Europe. [See also “The power of play: Cyberbullying solution?” and “Play, Part 2: Violence in videogames.”]