posted May 03, 2006 04:11 PM            

Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Wednesday May 3, 2006
The Guardian

They mature more quickly, are said to be more responsible and do better at school. Now media-savvy girls are putting another one over the boys by leading the digital communications revolution.
After one of the most comprehensive studies of the effect on children of the explosion in media choices of the past 15 years, the regulator Ofcom said girls aged 12 to 15 are more likely than boys to have a mobile phone, use the internet, listen to the radio and read newspapers or magazines. Only when it comes to playing computer and console games do boys overtake girls.

Given the historic domination of the home telephone by teenage girls, perhaps it is not surprising they are using the internet to communicate with friends for hours on end. Almost all children between 12 and 15 with the internet at home said they were "confident" surfing the web and did so on average for eight hours a week. But girls are more likely than boys to use the web as a communication tool.

The study, focusing on children aged between eight and 15, also showed the extent to which mobile phones and the internet are taken for granted by primary school children. Their 11th birthday appears to be the tipping point, with eight of out of 10 children having their own handset by that age.

The picture of a generation used to juggling a range of electronic devices will be heavily drawn upon by ageing media executives grappling with the rapidly changing landscape. The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, last week announced a radical reimagining of the corporation's role in an on-demand age.

'Worrying' material

But Ofcom also warned of dangers thrown up by those between eight and 15 racing into the digital future. One in six questioned reported coming across "worrying" material on the internet, while more than seven out of 10 parents of children aged 12-15 worried about their offspring seeing inappropriate material.

Four in 10 children aged between eight and 11 and more than seven in 10 aged 12-15 used the internet by themselves at home. Parents were more inclined to say they had rules about internet access and mobile phone use than children were to say they were subject to them.

The phenomenon of children setting the timer on the video recorder while their parents struggle with the instruction manual also appears to have translated to the internet age: two-thirds of those parents also admitted that their children knew more about the medium than they did.

"If kids are doing these things by themselves, they're not following the rules set by their parents and they don't know who to trust on the internet, then that's quite a worrying position and one we need to deal with," said Peter Davies, director of radio and multimedia at Ofcom. "The next step is to work out what it all means and where we go next."

Some fear children are not all taught the analytical skills to differentiate between the content and reliability of different websites. While TV and radio are overseen by Ofcom, internet content is unregulated. Two-thirds of 12 to 15-year-olds said most of what they found on the internet was "true", with one in five disagreeing. They showed greater sophistication with TV. Almost eight in 10 felt news programmes were true all or most of the time. Only a third thought reality shows were "true" all or most of the time, while one in five said they were never true.

Despite embracing new forms of technology, children still report watching almost 14 hours of television a week. Children in Scotland, Northern Ireland, those from ethnic minority groups and those in low-income households were found to watch substantially above average.

Access controls

More than a third of eight to 11-year-olds said they mainly watched television on their own. Pay-TV operators point out that sophisticated systems allow parents to control access to channels. But more than seven in 10 parents in households with cable or satellite TV admitted they had not set any controls. Four in 10 parents of 12 to 15-year-olds said there were no house rules about watching television.

Ofcom, which was charged by the government in 2003 with boosting media literacy, said it would use the research to help formulate guidelines. "The report provides important insights into a generation whose media experiences, attitudes and preferences are markedly different from those of their parents. There are challenges and opportunities for all involved," said Tim Suter of Ofcom.