Children’s interaction with the Internet: Time dedicated to communications and games

Assuming that families and educators should educate children with regard to the consumption and use of new technologies, and policy-makers will need to act accordingly to protect vulnerable children , we provide evidence of the time that children aged between 10 and 12 years old dedicate to two online activities: computer communication and computer gaming. To that end, we estimate a simultaneous SUR model with data from the Spanish Time Use Survey for 2009-2010. Results indicate that being female generates a positive influence on the time devoted to computer communication, and being male generates a positive influence on the time devoted to computer gaming. We also find that a greater number of family members with secondary studies generates a positive influence on the time spent on computer gaming. Children with better health spend more time on both of these activities and, finally, living in a larger city produces a positive effect on the time dedicated to computer gaming.