Profiles of Internet Users by Age Group - Ages 9-10
Boys and girls in this age group have similar interests when it comes to online explorations. The top five Web sites mentioned by this age group in Young Canadians In A Wired World: The Students' View are:
Boys:
- foxkids.com
- ytv.com
- dragonballz.com and yahoo/yahooligans.com (tie)
- pokemon.com
- hotmail.com
Girls:
- yahoo/yahooligans.com
- ytv.com
- hotmail.com
- neopets.com
- foxkids.com and teletoon.com (tie)
- Boys and girls at this age are being drawn to the Internet through television. The number one activity for this age group is visiting Web sites supporting TV stations and TV shows.
- Web sites for anime cartoon shows are immensely popular with the boys in this group, mentioned by four times as many boys as girls.
- The second favourite online activity for boys and girls in this group is visiting commercial Web sites for kids and teens. Neopets.com, a site where kids can adopt and raise their own virtual pets, and bonus.com, a "supersite" for kids, both appear in the top ten list. These sites use sophisticated Web design and high-end technology to create interactive online environments that are bright, funky and engaging.
- Using free, Web-based e-mail services provided by hotmail.com and yahoo.com is a popular activity for both sexes, with girls twice as likely as boys to mention hotmail.com as a favourite Web site.
- Visiting online game and cheat code sites ranked in the top five online activities for children ages 9-10, with roughly twice as many boys as girls mentioning game sites as their favourites.
- Visiting multi-purpose portals like yahoo.com is a highly-rated activity for girls and boys, with nearly twice as many girls as boys listing yahoo.com or yahooligans.com as a favourite Web site.
- Visiting sites where you can download free software or games (shockwave.com) or exchange music files (napster.com) ranked as the fourth most popular online activity for boys in this age range. For girls, this ranked as their eleventh most popular online activity.
