Kids from two to 11 years of age are spending 63 percent more time online than they did five years ago, says a report released Monday from Nielsen Online. Children in that age range were online an average of 11 hours in May 2009 versus just 7 hours in May 2004.
Over the past five years, the total number of kids surfing the Net has shot up 18 percent to 16 million, says the report, while the overall Internet population has risen only 10 percent. The younger set now represents 9.5 percent of the online community.
Online use among kids surged despite a projected decrease of 1 percent in the population of children under 14 for 2004 to 2010, says Nielsen, citing an estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Results were split pretty evenly by gender. For May 2009, boys 2-11 spent 7 percent more time online than did girls in the same age group, though girls surfed 9 percent more web pages than did boys.
Online video has proven popular among kids, especially boys. Among all children, boys watched 61 percent of videos on the Net in May 2009, accounting for 57 percent of the time the children spent viewing online video.
People who surf the Web also seem to love playing games. Among online adults, 27 percent own a gaming console, with another 10 percent planning to buy one over the next year, says a report released Tuesday by Nielsen Online.
Nintendo's Wii was the top console in May, owned by 14.3 percent of Web surfers tracked. That compares with a 9.4 percent market share among online adults for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and 5 percent for the Sony Playstation 3. But Sony's older Playstation 2 scored top honors, owned by 17.3 percent of online users.
Web sites for gaming consoles also proved to be hot spots in May. Nintendo's Web site enjoyed the largest audience with 2.2 million visitors, while Sony's site grew the fastest with 16 percent more traffic last month than a year ago.
The blogosphere has also been buzzing with gaming news. Blog stories about the Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation more than doubled on June 2, the first day of the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), versus the prior week. This year's E3 generated 30 percent more blog activity than last year's expo.
Bloggers have also been busy writing about the latest gaming news. Microsoft's upcoming Project Natal created more blog noise than any other recent announcement. Blog activity also was boosted by news of Nintendo's two new Mario games for the Wii and Sony's new motion controller.
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