Tag: gadgets survey

Gadgets use by children increases by 89 percent

| November 8, 2013

Research has shown that kids are using mobile devices far more than they were two years ago.

A recent report from Common Sense Media, entitled “Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America” has revealed that mobile gadgets are being used by kids at a much greater rate than they had been only two years ago.

The child advocacy group’s 2013 report has shown that small screen popularity is exploding in young age groups.

This research comes just at a time in which doctors are cautioning that too much time in front of digital screens might be quite unhealthy for kids. The biannual survey of American parents that was conducted by Common Sense Media showed that there has been an increase by 89 percent in the number of children between the ages of zero and eight years who have used mobile gadgets. This is a massive increase when compared to the 2011 data, when only 38 percent of kids in that age group were using those devices considering that 72 percent have done so, this year.

Even among children younger than two years, 38 percent have used mobile gadgets for media in 2013.

Gadgets - parents and childrenIn 2011, that figure had been only 10 percent. Furthermore, the amount of time that children are spending using those gadgets has tripled. It had been 5 minutes per day in 2011, but it has risen to 15 minutes, this year.

This report came at nearly the exact same time that the American Academy of Pediatrics underscored its previous cautions regarding the exposure of children to screens, including mobile gadgets and televisions. That organization advised parents to limit the “total entertainment screen time to less than one to two hours per day” and for children younger than two years, they should “discourage screen media exposure.”

The founder of Common Sense Media, Jim Steyer, has said that these gadgets are – to a growing degree – replacing everything from televisions to storybooks and even babysitters. Tablets have especially changed the way that devices play a role within families, as there has been a five-fold increase in the number of families who own them and of children who have access to them.

Gadgets survey shows 53 percent of people in UK have tried their own repairs

| October 1, 2013

A specialist insurer of devices have found that one third of Brits have accidentally broken their machines.

A specialist insurer of gadgets, Protect Your Bubble, has released data that has indicated that one third (33 percent) of people in the United Kingdom have broken their smartphones or tablets at some point.

Moreover, a large number of those individuals has attempted to fix the device on their own.

In fact, 53 percent of the people who had broken their gadgets had made some attempt to fix them. Among the most popular methods that were used for these repairs included Super Glue, which was the most popular at 38 percent, followed by strong adhesive tape at 30 percent, and then rubber bands at 18 percent.

Other less traditional methods of repair for these gadgets have also been used for emergency fixes.

Gadgets - Broken SmartphoneAmong those emergency methods for repairing gadgets included using Blu-Tack (also known as sticky-tack), which was used by 12 percent of the respondents to the survey, as well as hair ties among 9 percent of the participants, and even chewing gum in 5 percent of the cases. Men were far more likely than women to attempt to repair their own device.

Fifty nine percent of the male respondents had tried to fix their own gadgets, whereas only 46 percent of the women had attempted to do so. The main reason that people try to fix their own devices – as was the case among 41 percent of the respondents – was that professional repairs cost far too much. That said, 24 percent of the survey respondents said that they were willing to put up with the damage to their devices. Another 15 percent said that they wanted to be able to make do with their device until their mobile contract was up for renewal so that they would be entitled to a new one.

Men have a likelihood that is 6 times higher than women for breaking their phones or tablets by sitting down onto them. However, women are four times more likely than men to cause damage to their gadgets as a result of using them while in the bath.