Kids Now Spend Nearly as Much Time Watching TikTok as YouTube in US, UK and Spain

A new study on kids’ app usage and habits indicates a major threat to YouTube’s dominance, as kids now split their time between Google’s online video platform and other apps, like TikTok,  Netflix and mobile games like Roblox.

Time spent on TikTok increased during COVID-19 lockdowns, as well, leaving the app now only minutes away from being equal to time spent on YouTube. In the U.S., for example, kids’ average usage of TikTok hit 95 minutes per day during COVID-19 lockdowns compared with just two minutes more — 97 minutes — spent on YouTube.

The data in the annual report by digital safety app maker Qustodio (PDF) was provided by 60,000 families with children ages four to 14 in the U.S., U.K. and Spain, so its data isn’t representative of global trends. The research encompasses children’s online habits from February 2019 to April 2020, takes into account the COVID-19 crisis and is specifically focused on four main categories of mobile applications: online video, social media, video games and education.