Most Australian children go online for the first time between the ages of 5 and 10 and quickly become Net regulars, "with two-thirds of children logging on from home at least twice a week and 43% doing so daily," Australian IT reports, citing a new report from Nielsen/NetRatings. Nearly half of Australians 6-17 are online daily, the study also found. Older teens "are wedded to the world of … [Read more...] about Oz kids: Pros on Web
Youth
Kids’ screen time
Nearly half of US parents say their kids watch too much TV and "about a third of parents believe the Internet sucks up too much of their child's time," CNET reports. Where the Net's concerned, how much time is that? "More than three-quarters of Americans age 12 and older spend about 8.9 hours online per week, up about an hour from a 2005 study from the USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project," CNET … [Read more...] about Kids’ screen time
Kids’ virtual worlds hot
There's a mini boom of kids' virtual world afoot, CNET reports, probably fueled the success of Webkinz and Neopets and Disney's acquisition of ClubPenguin. One reason: "more kids are flocking to imaginative, character-driven environments. An expected 53% of children on the Web will belong to a virtual world within four years, more than doubling the current population of 8.2 million members," … [Read more...] about Kids’ virtual worlds hot
Young fashionistas online
Donna Karan's DKNY line and Sephora, the cosmetics store chain, will now be featured on the digital paperdolls site Stardoll.com. "Stardoll's rapidly growing Web site has a large audience of teen girls [6 million monthly visitors] who create Internet personas of themselves and spend hours dressing them up in fantasy costumes and socializing," Reuters reports. Before this they had to put up with … [Read more...] about Young fashionistas online
Zooming in on ClubPenguin
Grownup Michael Agger's experience as a penguin was quite different from the impressions left by Emily's "focus group" of 11-year-olds (he might've been a little more ingenuous than they - see previous post). Michael, an associate editor at Slate.com, spent enough time in ClubPenguin to observe various behavioral patterns, to understand how the safety features work, and to go a little flippy on … [Read more...] about Zooming in on ClubPenguin