≪A survey on actual usage of mobile phones and smartphones by minors≫
～Survey on actual use of applications and the internet by mobile phone and smartphone owners～
68.9% of female high school students own a secret SNS account and 67.6% wish to meet internet “friends” in real life
～There is no resistance to meeting with people they have got acquainted with on the internet, and they assume various troubling incidents related to meeting people on the internet is something that won’t happen to them
“LINE” is the most common means of communicating within families, and the most often consulted person in the family when a trouble occurs is the mother～

TOKYO, Japan (March 7, 2018) – Digital Arts Inc. (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, CEO: Toshio Dogu, hereinafter referred to as “Digital Arts”, Code 2326,) a leading provider of information security software, conducted its 11th survey on the usage of smartphones by children, targeting a total of 1,236 people, including 618 male and female elementary, junior and senior high school students nationwide who possess mobile phones and smartphones, and 618 parents and guardians with children aged from 0 to 9.

Actual usage of mobile phones/smartphones from 10 to 18 years old
* numbers in ( ) are the results of the survey conducted in January 2017.

Mobile phone (including smartphones) ownership rate of minors (10 to 18 years old) is 90.8% (80.3 %). 74.3% (60.2%) for elementary school (from 10 to 12 years old), 90.3% (82.0%) for junior high school students, 98.1% (98.5%) for senior high school students. Especially male elementary school students increased to 79.6% (59.2%).
The overall internet filtering usage rate is 49.5% (53.9%). 37.5% (49.0%) answered that they received an explanation of the filtering setting at the time of purchase.
The average usage time of mobile phones per day is 3.2 hours for the all children (all are the same). Male high school students – 4.9 hours (4.8 hours), female high school students – 5.6 hours (6.1 hours).

Frequently used applications and ownership rate of hidden accounts

Frequently used applications are “LINE” 82.4% (73.9%), “YouTube” 64.1% (58.6%) and “Twitter” 39.5% (35.8%). Among female high school students the following applications are popular: “Instagram” 73.8% (50.5%), “SNOW” 58.3% (same) and “Mercari” 46.6% (49.5%).
The frequent usage of SNS, movie shooting applications, and posting experiences are 46.6%, and among female high school students is 80.4%. The most frequent reason for doing such activities is “a place of self-satisfaction” (49.4%).
Hidden account ownership rate is 39.6% of all children and among female high school students is 68.9%. The reasons for ownership are 35.9% - “in order to express emotions I do not want anyone to know” and 35.9% - “in order to connect deeply with friends with similar hobbies.”

Communication means with surroundings and confidants

“LINE” is number one for communication with families and friends, with more than 70% usage rate, while for communicating with friends on the internet, “Twitter” is number one, with 22.3%. For female high school students that order is “Twitter” 58.3%, “LINE” 26.2%, “Instagram” 24.3%.
When asking for advice, 63.6% of the students consult their mothers, 41.1% consult friends, 33.7% - fathers. For male high school students “no-one in particular” scored 29.1%.
50.4% (47.4%) of the total wish to actually meet internet friends in real life, within the female high school students, this score rose to 67.6% (53.3%).

Risk awareness and the credibility of information on the internet

59.2% (61.5%) of the children surveyed felt that the news regarding various incidents connected to the internet had nothing to do with them. 22.0% (25.6%) considered personal information leakage a threat, 15.5% (15.9%) considered friends or acquaintances posting photos and videos on the net without permission a threat, and 14.6% (17.8 %) considered account hacking a threat. From the survey results, there is still a low awareness of the risks and troubles caused by meeting friends made on the internet.
33.3% say that they do not do anything in particular to avoid illegal acts. The survey results show that parents and guardians are less conscious than high school students on the issue.
The most reliable source of information is “television,” 42.6% (39.3%) of all surveyed children, 29.9% (28.8%) of the parents and guardians. Meanwhile, 25.7% (23.6%) of children and 22.2% (25.6%) of parents and guardians answered “do not trust anything,” a ratio of 1 in 4 people.

Ownership status of internet devices from 0 to 9 years old

58.1% (55.5%) of 0 to 9 year olds own some kind of device for their exclusive, with a breakdown of “portable game machine” 21.0% (25.0%), “commercially available tablet device” 17.2% (12.6%), and “second-hand smartphone” 13.4% (10.4%.)

This survey was conducted as the eleventh edition of “survey on actual usage of mobile phones and smartphones by minors,” regularly conducted since December 2011, and the survey results show mobile phone usage by 10 to 18 year-olds. The ownership rate of smartphones among minors with a smartphone increased by 10.5 points from 80.3% to 90.3% from the previous survey (conducted in January 2017,) and the ownership rate of elementary school students increased by 14.1 points to 74.3%. As a result, the acceleration of lower age ownership has been seen. The average usage time per day for mobile phones and smartphones was 3.2 hours for all children, which remained the same as last time, while the highest was among female high school students at 5.6 hours.

Last year, a painful incident involving minors and an SNS occurred in Zama City, and since then there is growing interest in how minors are conscious of the risks of using the internet. Although awareness to risks like leakage of personal information and hijacking of accounts is sufficiently high, awareness of the risks involved in meeting strangers on the internet and getting embroiled in incidents is small, and many minors have revealed that they do not feel such incidents should be a concern to them.

After the incident in Zama city, the Japanese government strengthened measures and enacted a revision to the “youth internet environment improvement law” in February of this year. The purpose is to increase the filtering utilization rate of minors and to promote awareness to protect children from crime and danger, but in the current situation the filtering utilization rate is less than half of 49.5%, according to this survey.

Despite the fact that the ownership of smartphones and tablets is spreading to younger age groups each year, we are faced with a low awareness of measures against risks associated with their use. First of all, parents and guardians must become sensitive to the environment surrounding their children, actively gathering information and creating rules when using the internet and smartphones at home. They also need to discuss with their children what kind of risks there are when using the internet and set up an environment where children can consult their parents and guardians immediately should a problem arise. Also, when deciding to buy a smartphone for your child, we think that it is important for parents and guardians to change to the same model as the child to better understand their usage environment.

At Digital Arts, we strongly believe that parents and guardians should be the first to become aware of the risks on the internet, and to protect their children from various risks according to the child’s age by using the function restriction and filtering software on internet- connected devices.

We will continue to appeal the importance of internet literacy and internet filtering nationwide through such surveys so that all people will be able to utilize the internet safely.