Time spent by youth on YouTube is slightly shorter than before, and one the ‘culprits’ is TikTok, whose popularity and use have been growing rapidly.

For most youth, YouTube is the most popular app, which they use the most, mainly for watching cartoons, video clips, films or influencers’ pranks.  However, a major threat coming from China has emerged in recent year – the app for sharing short video clips, TikTok, which has won the attention of children and youth, and even threatened YouTube’s popularity. The latest survey conducted by Qustodio among children between 4 and 14 in the USA, Spain and the United Kingdon has shown that children may soon spend more time on TikTok than on YouTube on a daily basis.

According to the survey, children between 4 and 14 spend 85 minutes per day on average in watching content on YouTube, compared to 80 minutes on TikTok. Last year, and especially this year during the quarantine, a strong increase of the app use was registered, with the trend expected to continue in the future as well.

It is interesting to note that the number of minutes spent by children on YouTube in 2020 is shorter by two to three minutes, and Tech Crunch ‘blames’ TikTok for stealing children’s minutes from Google. In the period from May last year until April this year, time spent by children on TikTok jumped by 116 percent in the USA (to 82 minutes), 97 percent in the UK (to 69 minutes), and 150 percent in Spain (to 60 minutes per day), and that time was additionally prolonged during the quarantine.

When it comes to YouTube, children watch twice more video clips on it today than 4 years ago, regardless of the fact that this video service targets 13+ users, while a special app, YouTube Kids, is designed for younger ones. However, only 7 percent of youth in the USA use the children’s app compared to the classic one for those older than 13, used by 69 percent of youth.  In the UK, that ratio is 74 and 10 percent, respectively, while in Spain YouTube is used by nearly 90 percent of youth between 4 and 14, whereas there is no data available for YT Kids.

Source: zimo.hr