Back When I Was A Kid…
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
By Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games
I fondly remember the things my parents used to say whenever we complained about things, like walking a quarter of a mile down the street to the bus stop for school. “When I was a kid, I walked three miles to school, through a snowstorm,” was one of my all-time favorites. And, of course, as most of us have, I vowed never to say these types of things to my own kids. And like most of us, I have failed miserably at keeping this promise.
“MMOOOOMM, the Internet isn’t working,” or “MMOOOOMM, the remote needs new batteries,” are common refrains heard in my home, and more than once I’ve responded with something along the lines of what my own parents would have said: “When I was a kid, we didn’t have the Internet. We had to go outside and make up games with the other kids in the neighborhood,” is one fine example. But, as much as I’ve studied kids, and their leisure time activities and entertainment behaviors, I still find myself being astounded by something we uncover in our research. Our newest report, Kids and Entertainment Content, takes a deep dive into how kids are consuming entertainment content and what they’re consuming. As I was initially reading the report, time and again I responded to something I read with a “wow” as something unexpected would pop up. We all see the evidence of digital content consumption around us so it’s no surprise that kids are consuming more and more content via digital methods, but would you ever have guessed that nearly half (43 percent) of kids that have downloaded digital content did so by the age of 6? Or that 10 percent of boys ages 2-5 regularly use YouTube? I think the source of the amazement stems from just how rapidly the landscape is still changing. I was sharing some of these findings with a colleague, and her response? You guessed it: “Back when I was six…”
Tags: entertainment content, kids
Entertainment, Toys | Anita Frazier, Entertainment Industry Analyst Toys & Video Games | 
January 7, 2010 5:10 pm
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By Mike, January 8, 2010 @ 11:46 am
What a beautifully written post!
By Dave, January 8, 2010 @ 1:36 pm
My son, 5 1/2yo, has been using YouTube for about a year now to look at videos of old cartoons, TV shows that we can’t get locally, and (probably most important) how to win at Mario. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am the one that shared with him that kind of content existed when I was stumpped on a game we were playing together. Now, he has taken it to a level beyond me (remember he is not even 6 yet).
I thik back to when I was 6…. how much has changed.
By Jayanta, January 25, 2010 @ 7:09 am
Really a good post. Nostalgic. even I can remember, what my mom used to say to me, in my childhood. I am from India, and I have my first access to internet when I was 21 years old, during my engineering days. And now, a small kid even know how to work with digital world, how to download, or which are the best torrents to download movies, music or games.