Will the trend continue over time? According to a French study, young people are less present on social networks than last year. According to this barometer carried out by Heaven for eight years and published Thursday, “71% of those under 13 today (compared to 86% in 2022) regularly use at least one social application”.
According to a 2021 survey by the National Commission for Information Technology and Liberties (Cnil), the first registration on a social network occurs on average around the age of 8 and a half and more than half of children aged 10 to 14 years would be present on these platforms.
YouTube, teenagers’ favorite platform
According to Heaven, YouTube (not considered a social platform by the study) remains the favorite platform of young people, with stable use, but “the use of the vast majority of platforms is decreasing” compared to the last year, including Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The only application in growth this year is BeReal, a French social network launched in 2020 consisting of sending photos taken on the spot and simultaneously when receiving a notification.
New law passed
The next edition of the barometer will make it possible to determine whether this is a trend or a seasonal effect, while cyberharassment is increasingly mentioned in the news and Parliament passed this year a law imposing social networks to refuse access to their services to those under 15 years of age, except with the agreement of one of the parents.
Most platforms have long banned the registration of under-13s, for whom they do not have the right to collect personal data, and have recently suspended the accounts of users who have lied about their age.
First smartphone at age 11
In this study carried out with 200 child respondents in September, with the IDM Families firm, and a panel of 10,000 children via the Génération digital association, children most often receive their first smartphone at 11 years old, and the equipment rate reached 83% at 12 years old.
The average daily time spent by respondents on their phone fell by fourteen minutes this year, to one hour and forty-nine minutes. But the study shows that parents have something to do with it, because 46% of adolescents (+14 points) want to spend more time connected. 21% of children also find that their parents spend too much time immersed in their cell phones.