Half of 2-year olds today occasionally use internet services. Already among 3-year olds, three in four are internet users and in 7-year olds the number is 90 percent. The largest increase the past few years has been among the youngest. In 2011, 49 percent of 3 year olds used the internet. Today that number is 75 percent. On the other hand, among 7-year olds, there were already 90% of users in 2011.

The biggest change in the last year has been that children’s use of the internet has become more frequent. In 2011, there were few daily users among pre-school children. Today, one in four between the ages of 2 to 3 years are daily users and a third in the ages of 4 to 6. In school age, the daily use increases rapidly from 45 percent among 7-year olds to 73 percent among 9-year olds.

When the tablet arrived, it was first just as popular among the younger children as with the older children. Icons to be touched made it possible to use without reading. This also applied to daily use, which in 2013 had only small differences between children from age 3 and up. Around 30 percent in all ages from 2 years old and up used the tablet daily in 2013. The past year, however, has seen a change; tablets have become widely distributed among school children and have become very popular. The result has been that over half are now daily users of tablets.

All daily internet users from ages 2 to 7 are also daily users of tablets. The tablet is not as frequently used by all over 9 years old where most use computers and smartphones daily.

Just like with computers, it was in the beginning most common to have one tablet in the family – which everyone has to gather around. Now, in the same way as the computer, it has become common to have several tablets in large families. Around half of families with children have more than one in the home. Many now even have their own tablet in the same way as people have their own computers and smartphones.

The first activity that the youngest children engage in on the internet is watching film and video. Almost all (94%) in the ages of 2 to 3 who use the internet do this. Half (51%) try to play some type of game; entertaining, exciting, creative, educational and more. It is simple to start up an app on a tablet, it just needs to be pressed. The proportion of those who play increase with age, with up to 93% in the ages of 6-7 and well above 90 percent in adolescence. There is also the early possibility to create personal things on the internet, for example, drawing and painting, but this is not a widespread activity.

When children reach the ages of 6 to 7 and can start to read and write, the internet opens up with chat and possibilities to communicate with others, visit social networks, begin to search for information and facts, and use the internet for school work. However, gameplay and video viewing still occupy a large part of internet time well into the teen years.

For school children (8–9) games continue to dominate as well as watching videos. Communication via chat (25%), social networking (20%) and e-mail (20%) have not really gotten popular yet. More common is to use the internet to search for facts (62%), use the internet for school work (50%) and to create their own content (48%)

In the ages around 10–11 there is a leap into social networking and creating contacts on the internet. Two out of three (66%) chat and are now on social networks (63%). Meanwhile, about 80 percent of internet time is used to search for facts about school work and almost all play games and watch videos.

In the beginning of the teenage years (12–15) the internet’s social functions take up more of internet time, with the most using the internet also for information and entertainment. Almost all search for facts (82%), look up words (91%) and use the internet for school work (78%). The numbers who listen to music via the internet are even higher (92%), watching YouTube (99%), and being on social networks (93%). For teenagers, the internet is the most important source of both information and entertainment.

The internet offers early opportunities to create your own content in the form of writing, drawing and building. The mobile camera gives the possibility to take your own pictures and record your own videos. Some of the youngest are testing these possibilities. The number of those on the internet creating their own content rises with age with more and more becoming daily users of the internet. Half of 10-year olds create something of their own on the internet at least once or several times a week. With writing comes new possibilities to express themselves.

Today there are many sites for the young to chat, for example, Kik, WhatsApp, and Snapchat, which is especially popular among those in the ages of 10 to 11 years old.

Kik, which many of the young use, is built for the mobile web and is connected to a user name, not a mobile number. There, one can send not only text, but also pictures and video. One can add a profile with a photo, connect to Instagram, etc. There is constant development and integration of communication channels and social networks. During the past year, chatting has increased and taken a step down in age. Today it begins earlier than before.

To reduce the cost for users, a connection to a wifi network is needed, which means that much of the use of Kik takes place at home or in school. This also affects how the mobile phone is used. Over half (56%) of young people in the ages of 12-15 use their smartphones more over a wifi network than via the cellular network and only 13 percent use the cellular network more. This is because they often have a pre-paid mobile phone.

School children learn early to check facts on the internet. In the beginning of the first school years, the difference between children is large. Around half of those ages 8 to 9 years old have discovered the possibility to check facts on the internet, while the other half have not. In the 10-year age group, eight out of ten do this sometimes, and two out of three do this at least once a week. The levels have not changed during the past year.

Just as common as checking facts or using the internet to look up words, is that many, especially the older youth, also use the internet to look up information on health and medical questions and take part in culture, science and literature. [diagram 7.18] If we compare this with earlier years, it is especially in terms of culture, science and literature where we see the biggest changes. Among those who are 12 to 15, 60 percent use the internet today to occasionally take part in culture, science and literature, which is an increase from 39 percent in 2012. Among the older youth (16-19) the increase is small, from 68 percent in 2012 to 70 percent today.

Today, almost all youth have access to the internet at home and in school and most use the internet at school at least once a week while two out of three (62%) do it daily. In three out of four schools there is access to a wifi network. During the last year, there have been changes and the tendency is that many more use the internet daily in school, from 53 percent of 12-15 year olds in 2013 to 62 percent in 2014. However, it is also common that one accesses the internet in school for private use. For a more thorough and detailed analysis, see Students and the internet, 2014. Students and the internet 2014.

Through the growing use of mobile phones and tablets, the time the youth devoted to the internet at home increased significantly, while the time devoted to the internet at school only rose marginally among the younger in the ages of 12-15. The increase seen earlier has leveled off.

Similarly, the young people’s (12-15) assessment of the internet’s importance in schoolwork has not increased but rather decreased during the last year. In the older youth, in the ages of 16 to 19, this is not the case as time with the internet in school has increased during the past year and the internet is just as important for schoolwork as in private use.

In many schools today, there is a wifi network and a third of students have their own computer in the school. If we look at what happens in schools, it is almost as common to use the internet for private use as for schoolwork. And in daily use, there are more using the internet for things other than schoolwork. Half of the students use the internet daily in school for private purposes and 35 percent use the internet daily for schoolwork.

This all means that one-third (32%) use the internet more often for schoolwork than for other things, 41 percent use the internet just as often for other things as they do for schoolwork, and a quarter of students (24%) use the internet more often for things other than schoolwork. The internet in school is thus much about the students’ personal use.

We can now see that the use of the internet in school is increasing. There are two tendencies behind this. One is that the internet is increasingly used for schoolwork. The daily use has risen. At the same time the internet in school is also utilized for private use and that usage has also increased. For two out of three, private use is just as extensive as that relating to the school.

Just as many use the internet for schoolwork as we have earlier seen using the internet to search and find facts on the internet. These activities are tied together. In the ages of 8-9, half of the children at some time use the possibilities the internet gives and a third do this at least once a week. Here there are large differences. A connection exists with the parents’ educational background so that 53 percent of the children of the well-educated (8-9) use the internet sometimes for schoolwork compared to 40 percent of children of others. However, this only explains a small part of the differences.

Already several years ago, most children in the ages of 12 to 15 were using the internet sometimes for schoolwork. The regular daily use, however, was limited. Here we can now see a change. The daily usage of the internet for schoolwork has increased from 10 percent to 35 percent. Every third child in school (12-15) now uses the internet daily for schoolwork.

Half of 10-year olds (56%) today are connected with a social network and every fifth (20%) are there daily. Then the number of those who visit social networks rise with increasing age and almost all young people in the ages of 12 to 15 visit sometimes and 9 of 10 at least once a week. Three out of four (72%) do it daily. Adolescents (12-15) are also active participants. 79 percent post updates and 21 percent post daily.

If we go down in age, we find those who visit social networks already at the age of 7 and 8, which was not seen earlier. This large increase in the past year has been among schoolchildren in the ages of 9 to 11. Many more of them are now on social networks, but in the ages above, where most have already visited social networks, the levels have stayed around the same in recent years.

Facebook has long been the dominating social network that everyone is on, and so it is still with one exception: the ages of 12 to 15. Here, there are many alternative networks available and the numbers of visitors to social networks are larger than the numbers on Facebook, which means that all in this age that visit social networks do not necessarily visit Facebook

But Facebook is still the largest and 83 percent are on Facebook while 53 percent are there daily. No other network is as popular.

Almost as popular as Facebook among the young, especially young women, is Instagram. 78 percent of girls in the ages of 12-15 are there sometimes and 62 percent of boys. 62 percent of girls are there daily and almost half (45%) are there several times a day. Even those a little older (16-25) use Instagram daily – 60 percent of young women and 30 percent of young men. For the most part Instagram is not a competitor to Facebook (see Chapter 3, diagram 3.13), but in the ages of 12-15 it is a network that could compete with Facebook in daily use.

The number of those who use e-mail daily has risen among adolescents during the past year. E-mail is not something unfamiliar to adolescents, and already in earlier years, most have used e-mail at some time, but it has not been especially frequent. Today, half (51%) of the younger adolescents (12-15) use e-mail at some time during the week and 25 percent do it daily, compared to 4 percent daily use in 2013. Virtually all older adolescents (16-19) are already familiar with e-mail and 46 percent use e-mail daily compared to 26 percent last year. This means that among adolescents, e-mail has become a thing of everyday use on the internet.