Advanced Television

Internet beating TV for kids’ attention

March 12, 2008

TV, loses to the internet as a kids media, according to a study on social networking by Grunwald Associates, an independent research firm that specialises in new media market intelligence. Sixty-four per cent of kids go online while watching television, and nearly half of US teens (49 per cent) report that they do so frequently — anywhere from three times a week to several times a day. Multitasking on the Internet, on mobile phones and MP3 players, and on other new media suggests that companies must respond with much more creative, multimedia marketing campaigns for their messages to penetrate.

The study reveals that 73 per cent of TV-online multitasking kids are engaged in “active multitasking,” defined by Grunwald Associates as content in one medium influencing concurrent behaviour in another. This trend represents a 33 per cent increase in active multitasking since 2002. While kids are using more media, their attention primarily and overwhelmingly is focused on their online activities.

Categories: Articles, Broadband, Broadcast