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If you are in second grade and are reading this article because you saw a link to it on X, please close this link immediately and tell your parents.
A company that makes parental monitoring software called Qustodio recently released a report about app use for kids and teens based on its analysis of anonymous data from about 180,000 of its US users. Some of the information about what young people are doing online is what you'd expect: teenagers love watching TikTok and using Snapchat; younger kids under 13 are most interested in Roblox (53%) and YouTube (52%).
But there was one statistic that made my head spin: 31% of 7- to 9-year-olds use the X (Twitter) app.
I'm sorry, but … I can't believe there's any way in any possible universe that's true.
According to Pew, which is a reliable source of survey data using sound methodology, as of 2023, only 22% of adults in the US said they used X, and only 20% of teens ages 13 to 17 said the same. (Pew doesn't track social media use for children under age 13.)
Don't just take it from Pew. X CEO Linda Yaccarino, while testifying before Congress last winter with other social media CEOs, said that less than 1% of X users in the US were between 13 and 18. (X, like most of the platforms, doesn't allow users under 13, although obviously some children sneak through.)
But let's also think about this practically. Do you know any second graders? I happen to live with one. He thinks Elon Musk is very cool because if you're 7 years old and you saw a Cybertruck, you'd also think it was extremely cool. However, he and his peers have zero interest or awareness of the concept of X or Twitter. I know many 7- to 9-year-olds; I have never heard of any of them using X.
Qustodio's report says that for this age range, Roblox is the most popular app, followed by YouTube. This sounds about right.
But X?
I reached out to Qustodio to ask how to interpret this bizarre number.
Emily Lawrenson, Qustodio's content and communication manager, told me that it "doesn't mean that kids are actively posting on X; simply that 31% of that age group used the app across 2023. We would be inclined to merit this to pure curiosity at this age."
I asked if perhaps this could be because a child was using a device that they shared with a grown-up.
"We considered the profile usage rather than the device itself to avoid this, as profiles on Qustodio are individual to each child," Lawrenson said.
"It's important to note that access does not equate to engagement; rather, it can include having the application open and scrolling it. It's important to note, too, the ease with which X can be accessed; a simple search online, which children do regularly, about a particular topic of interest can yield an X result, which, once clicked, can prompt the child to download the application and view the application," Lawrenson said.
But the X app doesn't let you see tweets if you're not logged in, so it's not actually so easy to accidentally surf around. It's also rated 17+ in the App Store and Google Play, which means that if a parent has set up age limits for app downloads, it wouldn't be easy for the kid to simply get it.
I have a theory: Many parents probably set up their kids' iPads using their own adult iCloud account because iPads don't allow you to switch between more than one user account, and setting up a whole new iCloud account for a kid is a lot more work. (I recommend doing it, however, as it's worth the hassle!)
Apple's parental controls are robust, but require creating a new iCloud account (and creating a new email address for them), attaching it as a child under a family plan, and then fiddling around with settings on both the parent and child devices. It's quite possible that some parents would rather use a third-party solution like Qustodio than deal with the slightly confusing Apple settings.
In those cases, a parent might also occasionally use the iPad, and add things like X, even though the Qustodio profile would be for the child.
Another hint that this might be the case is that Qustodio found the Amazon shopping app was used by 41% of 7- to 9-year-olds, even though it, like X, was only used for a few minutes per day on average.
Sharing a device might explain why these adult apps are even available to kids at all.
Tech companies often put out reports with survey results or data analysis like this. It's a good way to get publicity and understand user behavior. I get PR pitches like this all the time, and sometimes, they are illuminating and interesting! A company that monitors kids' screen time would likely have some very interesting insights and data about an issue that is currently a huge conversation. (TechCrunch took Qustodio up on this report and wrote about it.)
But when a company is writing these reports with its own data and methodology, you have to be a little skeptical. Qustodio wants to sell parents screentime monitoring software — it would be in the company's interest to play up the potential dangers of screentime. And yes, the idea of nearly a third of 7- to 9-year-olds being on X is very scary!
I don't think Qustodio just invented some fake numbers. But I think there might be more to the story about what is going on behind this data.
It also shows that when it comes to screen time and kids, there's just a lot we don't know.
