Kid-centric digital media company TotallyAwesome has conducted research on the digital behaviour of kids in APAC, analysing online media consumption, device usage, and content and brand preferences.

With 90 per cent of kids on social media, safety is at the heart of parents’ concerns.

Most widely-used social media platforms age-gate at age 13 or older.

However, TotallyAwesome´s research shows that 90 per cent of kids between 4 and 12 claim to be using platforms such as YouTube Facebook and Instagram.

As a result, a staggering number of parents have expressed their concerns with regards to their kids’ safety on social media.

In APAC, 95 per cent of the panel recognised that the social media presence of kids might represent a risk:

1. 68 per cent were afraid that their kids might come across inappropriate content,
2. Over 56 per cent were worried about the potential negative influence,
3. Over 47 per cent fear cyberbullying,
4. Over 34 per cent were concerned about their general well-being

Parents from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam were found to be the most worried with results reaching 98 per cent.

Even more concerning is that 68 per cent of these parents had claimed that their kids had already experienced real issues online: 33 per cent stated that their kids had already been exposed to inappropriate content and 24 per cent had fallen victim to bad influence*

Kids’ online presence is on the rise

These rising concerns are the inevitable result of the growing presence of kids online. Around the world, more than 175,000 children go online for the first time each day.

Beyond the fact that 1 in 3 internet users today is a child, time spent online – and on social media –  is also on the rise: TotallyAwesome’s research shows that a child in APAC will spend an average of 2 hours online per weekday, and 2.5 hours per day on weekends.

TotallyAwesome CEO Quan Nguyen explained: “We had expected to see concerns amongst parents regarding their kids´ digital safety – this is a global trend.

“However, the results were much higher than we initially anticipated.

“It is important for us to seek feedback from both parents and children to make sure that our solutions, such as PopJam, our kid-safe content platform, remain relevant and help kids to stay safe in the digital space.”

TotallyAwesome’s annual Kids’ Digital Insights Study was conducted across 14 markets – including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand – with a sample of over 4900 kids (aged 4 to 16) and families.