- Office of Electronic Communications

Consumer Survey 2022

We  introduce the results of the latest Consumer Survey 2022, conducted among children and their parents. They show how the youngest use telecommunication services.

Children usually start using a cell phone at the age of 7- 10 (7-8 - 38.3%, 9-10 - 41.4%). Almost every child (96.9%) has a smartphone. Usually the phone was chosen by the parents (according to responses: children - 58.2%, parents - 54%), and it was mainly the parents (82.7%) who decided to choose mobile offer. Similarly, as in 2021, almost half of parents (46.9%) admitted that they spend between PLN 21 and PLN 30  on their children's phone services.

As with reference to the phone, most children (91.3%) use the internet outside of online education.

The most common age for children to start their online adventure is 7-8 (38.8%). 23.1% of children said they had started using the web at the age of 5-6. Children spend most of their time on the Internet watching YouTube videos, playing games, browsing websites and using instant messaging and social network sites.

Among the most common risks and dangers of, children’s internet usage parents include: the possibility of experiencing cyberbullying, becoming a victim of fraud and contact with strangers hiding their true identity (64.1%, 50.4%, 35.5%).

More than half of parents (43.8%) believed that their children can check the cost of using mobile apps. 44.1% admitted that their children can shop through mobile apps. 77.8% of parents said their children bought games or apps on their own through mobile apps.

The majority of parents (86.8% ) have talked to their child about online safety at least once. Parental control over their child's use of the of the Internet most often (77.2%) took the form of setting rules for online use, talking to the child about his / her experiences (51.5%), and, (somewhat less often) using specialized parental control software/apps or configuring security settings on devices. Nearly two-thirds of parents (62.9%) reported imposing restrictions on their children's Internet usage . Restrictions were more often applied by parents to younger children.

Compared to last year, the percentage of children who had heard about the rules for safe Internet usage increased significantly.

All details are in the full version of the report at cik.gov.pl and on the UKE’s blog.