On the occasion of the 'Safer Internet Day', the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) published data on how children and teenagers use social media and other online services. According to the results, almost two-thirds of 10- to 15-year-olds are active in social networks and the vast majority of 89 percent use messenger services such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Viber.
These figures result from an annual survey on the use of information and communication technologies in private households. The following results refer to the first quarter of 2020 and primarily to the age group of 10–15 year-olds ('children and teenagers') in Germany.
These are further insights:
- In the first quarter of 2020, a total of 61 percent of children and teenagers were active on social networks. Compared to 64 percent in the first quarter of 2018, this share remained largely unchanged.
- The proportion of young people who used the Internet to play or download games also remained stable at 79 percent compared to 81 percent in 2018.
- Between the first quarter of 2018 and 2020, the share of young consumers who streamed videos and movies from commercial providers such as Netflix increased significantly from 36 to 58 percent. Use of Internet and video calls (from 72 to 82 percent) and communication via email (from 48 to 64 percent) also increased sharply within that period.
- 45 percent of young people stated to have low concerns about their online activities being tracked for personalized advertising. Another 39 percent of young consumers expressed no concerns at all and only 14 percent expressed major concerns.
- Within the overall sample across all age groups, a similar number of respondents (43 percent) had minor concerns data being collected for advertising purposes, but only 11 percent had no concerns at all, while 36 percent expressed major concerns.
- 23 percent of young respondents said that they usually read data protection declarations about personal data – compared to almost twice as many respondents (45 percent) in the overall sample.
Source: Destatis
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