Insight Memo [65]The Era of "Smartphones from Birth" ~ Findings from the University of Tokyo Joint Study
Dentsu Inc. Media Innovation Lab continues its research on children's engagement with media in collaboration with Professor Yoshiaki Hashimoto of the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies. This time, the joint research team conducted a new survey focusing on smartphone use among infants and toddlers (July-September 2018: web survey of mothers and group interviews). This Insight Memo presents findings revealed by the results.
Surprisingly, 23% of infants under 1 year old use smartphones!
Figure 1 shows the results of the question "Does your child use a smartphone?" asked to mothers of children aged 0 to 12. As you can see, even newborns aged 0 have contact with smartphones at a rate of 23.0% (use within the home). This 23.0% figure is nearly identical to the result from another survey conducted by Professor Hashimoto (Hashimoto Lab & KDDI: September 2017 survey). It seems smartphones have now become "something infants and toddlers commonly come into contact with"!
(For reference, Figure 2 also shows exposure rates to digital devices other than smartphones)
Why are infants using smartphones?
Now, let's examine the background behind the rise of smartphone-using infants. Why did infants start using smartphones? The following three points emerged as the "circumstances" and "background" behind this trend.
① Widespread smartphone use among mothers
② Smartphones becoming a "babysitting" tool amid busy childcare and housework
③ For infants and toddlers, smartphones are becoming the "ultimate toy"
Regarding point ①, mothers ten years ago hardly used smartphones (the iPhone 3G was introduced in Japan in 2008). Today, however, nearly all mothers use smartphones (our survey found over 90% of mothers with children aged 0-6 use them).
Regarding point ②, we learned from mothers' own voices in group discussions how busy single-parenting routines lead them to unconsciously rely on smartphones for childcare. Comments like these were heard:
"When I'm busy with housework, I hand my child the smartphone. Like when I just want to eat my own meal in peace sometimes..."
"I think it started when I showed my child the smartphone screen to keep them quiet in public places like hospitals or trains."
"I started using my phone instead of a music box to put them to sleep. Searching for things like 'baby sleep' plays those kinds of songs."
Will this trend continue to grow?
What are infants doing on smartphones?
Regarding the point that "smartphones have become children's best toys" (③), what exactly are they playing with on them? Many infants and toddlers watch YouTube (including the child-friendly YouTube Kids). For example, as shown in Figure 3, one in two infants aged 0 who have smartphone exposure watches YouTube. The exposure rate is even higher for children aged 1 and older. They reportedly tug at their parents' hands or repeatedly say "Anpanman!" to their parents, begging to watch the smartphone.
Incidentally, a mother shared an anecdote at a group meeting: one child started crying when given an older model phone that couldn't play Anpanman videos. (Note: These videos primarily feature children playing with Anpanman dolls.) Other observations included children stopping crying when shown videos of characters singing, or showing a preference for animal videos and toy introduction videos.
Beyond video viewing, the smartphone's "camera function" is also a favorite among infants. Many children around 0-1 years old love seeing photos and videos of themselves taken by their parents. By age 1, some children even say "I want to see!" when shown images of themselves or try to take selfies. Other educational uses include "playing classical music for children on smartphones" and "showing phonics-related videos" (a method promoting correct reading by teaching the relationship between English spelling and pronunciation).
The Future of Children and Media
Today's infants and toddlers are becoming the "touchscreen generation," learning to operate devices by touching screens with their fingers. Please see the following Figure 4.
Regarding touchscreen proficiency among 0-3-year-olds, while breaking it down by exact age reduces sample size, 42.0% of 1-year-olds perform actions like swiping or pinching out/pinching in (using two fingers to zoom in/out) on smartphones/tablets. Furthermore, 32.1% have mastered operations such as touching the screen to move to a different video. (Some even try to swipe or pinch out/in on TV screens!). *Base population: smartphone or tablet users.
Looking at this data, it's expected that children who take for granted the idea of "choosing what they want to watch with just one finger, on their own terms" will only increase in number. Let's call it self-convenience mediaism.
Furthermore (based on responses from children aged 4 and above), while they find watching on a large TV screen enjoyable, they also show a tendency to be attracted to watching on smartphones at their preferred time and place. It is foreseeable that future children will become less particular about the media container (i.e., viewing device) and that a platform-free sensibility will expand.
Now, Professor Hashimoto, a co-researcher, stated the following:
"This survey provided us with invaluable data that could only be obtained during this period when smartphones are truly becoming widespread even among infants. For example, during the era of television's proliferation, no similar quantitative survey targeting infants and toddlers existed in Japan. If we had data on whether 0-year-olds showed interest when TV was introduced, what programs they preferred, or what concerns parents had, it would undoubtedly have been fascinating."
The joint research team has named children growing up in a world where smartphones exist as naturally as air or water from birth "Post-Digital Natives." As these Post-Digital Natives mature, numerous empirical research questions emerge: How will they differentiate between watching live TV on large screens and viewing smartphone videos? How will their preferences for video content itself change compared to previous generations?
[Qualitative Research Overview]
(1) Research Method: Online Survey
(2) Survey Dates: Saturday, July 14, 2018 – Monday, July 16, 2018
(3) Target: Randomly selected participants meeting the following criteria from online survey monitors
Mothers aged 20–49 with a firstborn child aged 0–12 (excluding junior high school students)
(4) Target Area: Nationwide
(5) Valid Sample Size and Allocation:
[Qualitative Research Overview]
(1) Research Method: Group Interview Survey
(2) Survey Date: Tuesday, September 4, 2018
(3) Participants: ① Mothers with children aged 0–2 (any gender) (6 participants: ages 20–44) / Mother owns her own smartphone, and child watches YouTube almost daily
② Mothers of 5th–6th grade girls (6 participants: ages 20–44) / Child has owned their own smartphone for over a year, uses it almost daily, and uses at least one of LINE, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook
(4) Target Area: Residents of Tokyo and the three neighboring prefectures
(5) Number of interview participants: 6 participants × 2 groups (① and ②)
Contact:
Dentsu Inc. Dentsu Media Innovation Lab
Yoshihide Nagao
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Author
Yoshihide Nagao
Dentsu Inc.
After joining the company, he worked in the media division and is currently engaged in audience research at Dentsu Media Innovation Lab, where he also promotes joint research projects with various universities. Publications include: The Birth of Neo-Digital Natives (Diamond Inc., co-authored), and Information Behavior of the Japanese 2010 (University of Tokyo Press, co-authored).
