Over half a million children between the ages of 10 and 15 are worried that they will be left out of their social circle if they're not always on Facebook or Twitter, research from Mintel has found.
It was found that 60 per cent of those aged 10-15 say that they use a social networking website or app - with 39 per cent of those aged 10, 43 per cent of those aged 11 and 54 per cent of those aged 12 saying they used such sites. This number increases even further for 13 year olds (73 per cent), 14 year olds (79 per cent), and 15 year olds (80 per cent).
Harry Segal, consumer research analyst at Mintel, said: “Our research highlights the impact that social networks are having on the teens and tweens age group and the pressure they feel to remain connected. There is a burgeoning interdependence between real life relationships and online interactions among younger generations, and a strong level of demand among children to use social networking sites.
"In light of this, and the high number of children aged under 13 using them, popular social networks should perhaps focus on providing a safe environment for children, rather than imposing a 13+-only policy that today's tech-savvy tweens find almost trivially easy to circumvent.”
Despite the worries about younger children using social networking sites, over a fifth (22 per cent) of children aged 10-15 feel more free to express themselves online, while 18 per cent say that their social networking profile or page says a lot about them or describes them best, and 17 per cent claim to spend a lot of time and effort on their social networking profile or page.
More than half (53 per cent) of teens’ and tweens’ parents trust their children to use their devices without supervision, with 41 per cent of parents of 10 year olds saying the same.