YouTube is children’s favourite online destination with practically all 5-16 year olds exploring it and a growing majority using it every single day, reveals a report from CHILDWISE into childhood in 2018.

This year’s favourite YouTuber is Logan Paul, who has knocked Zoella off of her long-held top spot.

“Prior to this year, Logan had not been chosen by children at all, building up his YouTube fan base over the last year since the discontinuation of Vine, where he originally found fame,” said Simon Leggett, research director.

“His growing audience, which starts as young as age 9, were potentially exposed to shocking content over New Year after Logan’s ill-considered decision to upload a widely criticised video of his visit to Aokigahara, Japan’s ‘suicide forest’. The video has since been removed from the site.”

The 2018 CHILDWISE Monitor is a comprehensive annual report looking at 5 to 16-year-olds media consumption, purchasing and social habits as well as key behaviour. More than 2000 children in schools across the United Kingdom completed in-depth online surveys for the report.

“Zoella losing her top YouTuber slot to Logan Paul shows that we could be moving into a new era with a change in the kind of vloggers that are popular with children,” says Simon.

“Children used to mainly follow wholesome, big-sister/brother types who offered chatty advice and company. However, children’s favourite new vloggers are more edgy, with a style more akin to negative playground behaviour where the most popular vloggers are the ones that do the worst possible things they can get away with on YouTube.”

“At first YouTube was new and interesting but children have become used to it and now they want something more edgy. Like any established market, a new breed of YouTubers often have to be shocking to grab children’s attention and become a favourite.”

“As a parent you can’t just assume that because a vlogger is popular with children it’s ok for your kids to be watching them. The onus is on parents now to check what their children are viewing.”

Kids favourite YouTubers, in order of popularity, are Logan Paul, DanTDM, Jake Paul, Zoella, Miniminter, Roman Atwood, Joe Sugg, The Pals and KSI.

YouTube remains the top website/app with three in ten 7-16 year olds choosing it as a favourite. Snapchat maintains second place chosen by one in five children. Snapchat is now used by more than half of 7-16s (55 per cent) up from 46 per cent last year, and is the top way teenagers keep in touch with their friends.

Roblox and Minecraft are used by a quarter of children to stay in touch with friends, but Roblox has risen in popularity while Minecraft has stalled.

More than half of children say they normally use Instagram, up from last year, and use of Whatsapp has increased significantly this year with two in five saying they use it.

However, Twitter drops further in popularity this year, with one in five using it, and only 2 per cent of children choosing it as their favourite (3 per cent last year, 4 per cent the year before).

Half as many children say Facebook is their favourite this year, down from 7 per cent to just 4 per cent this year. Girls continue to use it but only 2 per cent of boys mention it.

Netflix is a favourite website/app for 2 per cent of children, making the list for the first time this year.

Findings of the report also inclu:

• Children age 5-16 spend just over two and a half hours a day watching programmes, video and short clips (2.6 hours, 2.5 hours last year).
• Most children now use devices other than a traditional television set to watch video content.
• YouTube remains the top way of watching on-demand content.
• Children age 9-16 spend an average of 2.7 hours online a day. This has dropped over the last three years and is down from 2.9 hours last year. However, this fall could be a consequence of children being less able to determine which of their routine activities are carried out online or offline.
• Children are taking to virtual reality with 25 per cent having mobile VR equipment at home, 11 per cent with PlayStation VR, 10 per cent have Oculus Rift and 6 per cent have HTC Vive
• Binge watching content is a growing habit.

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