A Three-Year-Old Watching Media for Over 3 Hours a Day... Three Times the WHO Recommendation

Children aged 3-4 use media for 184 minutes
WHO recommends 'within 1 hour per day'

The media usage time of children in South Korea was found to be about three times the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the '2023 Children's Media Usage Survey' report released by the Korea Press Foundation on the 6th, the average daily media usage time of children aged 3 to 4 last year, including TV, smartphones, tablet PCs, and computers, was 184.4 minutes. The WHO recommends that media usage time for children aged 2 to 4 should be 'within 1 hour per day.' In other words, children aged 3 to 4 in South Korea watch media for about three times the recommended time by WHO.

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The average daily media usage time for all children aged 3 to 9 was 185.9 minutes. By age group, children aged 7 to 9 had the longest usage time at 196.9 minutes, while those aged 5 to 6 had the shortest at 169.0 minutes. However, in the 2020 survey, the average daily media usage time for children aged 3 to 9 was 284.6 minutes. This is believed to reflect the special circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The timing of media exposure was also found to be early. 57.7% of children started watching TV before 24 months of age, and 29.9% began using smartphones. The WHO recommends that children under 2 years old should not be exposed to electronic device screens such as TV viewing or gaming.

In the 2023 survey, the most used media device among children was the smartphone. Usage rates by device were smartphone (77.6%), smart TV (65.6%), tablet PC (57.1%), computer (24.7%), regular TV (17.1%), game console (16.6%), and AI speaker (12.3%), in that order.

Also, 7 out of 10 children aged 3 to 9 (75.3%) were found to use YouTube. Their average daily YouTube usage time was 83 minutes. A considerable number of children also created online videos themselves. 17.6% of children had experience producing online videos, with the rate higher at 23.9% among children aged 7 to 9.

The biggest reason guardians allowed children to use smartphones was 'to relieve the child's stress or change their mood' (50.8%), followed by 'as a reward when the child finished their tasks or behaved well' (38.5%). 18.3% responded that they allowed smartphone use to avoid being disturbed while doing other tasks.

Meanwhile, this survey was conducted from October 26 to December 8 last year, targeting 2,675 guardians of children aged 3 to 9 nationwide, with a sampling error of ±2 percentage points (95% confidence level).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.