Nielsen: Young Kids Get Online in a Hurry

A new study from Nielsen Online finds young kids are getting online faster than older kids and their parents...and they're spending more time online, too.

A new study (PDF) from Nielsen Online finds that young kids are getting online faster than adults or older children—in fact, since 2004 Nieslen finds young children are logging 63 percent more time online.

According to study, children aged 2 to 11 years of age comprise a whopping 9.5 percent of the online universe and account for nearly 16 million Internet users—and boys and girls are online in about equal numbers. Kids aged 2 to 11 also spent a lot more time online compared to numbers from 2004: back then, the age group only spend 7 hours a month online, but today that’s 11 hours.

Today, boys spend about 7 percent more time online than girls, but girls view 9 percent more Web pages. Boys are also more likely to tap into online video, accounting for 61 percent of all kids’ video streams and 57 percent of all time spent watching online video.