Nickelodeon: 40% of 3-11 year-olds own a tablet, 17% have a smartphone

At event as fine tuned as their spring upfront, Nickelodeon recently presented exclusive research on that state of kids in the US. Nickelodeon presented the research as follows:

Nickelodeon's presentation on the state of kids

There are approximately 50 million kids under the age of 11 in the U.S., comprising 15.4% of the overall population. As part of Generation Z, these kids represent the most racially diverse group ever in the country’s history and they are very much a product of the unique times they are growing up in. This generation of kids has been shaped by historic and extraordinary circumstances. Within their lifetimes, they have seen the first African-American President of the United States; witnessed war and terrorism as it is happening thanks to social media and the 24-hour news cycle; seen marriage equality become a reality; experienced the recession and witnessed how it has affected their parents; and were born into an on-demand world with everything seemingly at their fingertips.

The digital and device highlights below showed how prevalent tablets and smartphones are even for young kids. The implications for how content will be created in the future is huge and it's smart that Nickelodeon recognizes this.

• Today’s kids are tech innate, due in large part to parents purchasing mobile devices that are exclusively for their children’s use.
• We have seen a rise in mobile device ownership among kids, 40% of 3-11 year-olds own their own tablet and 17% have their own smartphone, and these stats are trending up.
• As kids grow older, the devices they engage with shift and there is a change from content consumption to content creation.
• This role as a content creator among older demos (8-15 years-old), has led to kids adopting a “maker” mentality: if it doesn’t exist, they will create it.
• This “maker” trait also contributes to kids’ surprising interest in being entrepreneurs. 69% of kids say: “I really want to start my own business someday.”

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