At what age a child should have their first mobile is a question that many parents ask themselves. The truth is that there is no precise age, since it depends on what each parent considers appropriate, but the trend indicates that from the age of 10 the children begin to ask for it and when they reach 12, three out of four children have one.
According to the Survey on Equipment and Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Households that the National Institute of Statistics (INE) has just published, between the ages of 10 and 15 is the age at which children begin to use a mobile phone. At 10 years only 25% of children use it, at 11 years they have 45.2%; at 12, 75%; at 13, 83.2%; at 14, 92.8%, and at 15, 94%. That is to say that since the age of 14, nine out of ten children have a mobile.
The results are similar to those of last year, according to which, half of eleven-year-old Spanish children have a mobile. The number of children who have a mobile phone with 11 years has decreased slightly, but the number of children who have it at 12 has risen (last year 72% and now 75%).
Matches the beginning of high school, around 11-12 years, when children want to have their own mobile. At that age they begin to have a more active life in social networks and to communicate with their friends on WhatsApp.
In any case, the last decision is always of the parents, and whatever the age at which they begin, it is important to manage the use of mobile phones in children, so that they make reasonable use of the devices and that the experience is Safe and positive
And the computer?
Our children no longer conceive a life without a computer, much less without the internet. The use of the computer and the Internet is increasing among children between 10 and 15 years old, and interestingly, girls outperform boys.
At 10, 88.4% of children use a computer and 88.8% use the internet, and when they reach 15, it rises to 92.5% and 99.2%, respectively.
Social networks
On the use of social networks, although in Spain the minimum age to access social networks is 14 years, 67.6% of children between 10 and 15 years have participated in the last three months on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube
Via | INE
In Babies and more | Children and Instagram: rules of use to protect your children, They took their 13-year-old son's cell phone for three days, and when he turned it on he had 14,000 WhatsApp messages
