According to the Kids and Consumer Electronics: 2012 Edition, the latest report from the NPD Group, portable and console video game systems continue to have the highest usage levels among kids ages 4 to 14, but media tablets experienced the highest increase in usage at 13 percent this year, versus only 3 percent last year.
Additionally, while usage of the more sophisticated devices such as computers and video game devices tend to increase as kids get older, tablet usage is highest among younger children, which highlights how important it is for manufacturers to make their devices easy to use. According to the report, households with kids ages 4 to 14 own an average of 10 different devices, with kids using an average of five of those devices.
Televisions, computers, and cell/smartphones continued to maintain the highest household ownership, while portable digital music players saw the largest drop in household ownership with just 35 percent owning these devices in 2012, compared to 48 percent last year. Household ownership of console and portable video game systems, media tablets, and digital video cameras experienced the most significant increases.
Portable video game systems are the most popular devices personally owned by kids ages 4 to 14, with 6 years of age being the average age of adoption; this is slightly younger than last year, when the average age was 6.4.
This post was originally written by Loren Moreno and published by ToyBook.com. For more news, visit www.toybook.com, follow The Toy Book on Twitter, and like The Toy Book on Facebook. The Toy Book is a bimonthly trade magazine covering the toy industry, published by Adventure Publishing Group.
