First Steps in a Digital World

How families with children aged 5 and under navigate digital technology

This report explores young children’s engagement with digital technology and the support parents tell us they need.

What’s on the page

Key findings
See the full report
Supporting resources
Explore more research and policy

Key findings

Children are growing up in a world with digital technology all around them. As a result, parents and carers are navigating questions about their children’s digital device use earlier than ever before.

Drawing on survey findings and interviews with parents of children aged five and under, this report explores how young children engage with digital devices and what support families need to make informed decisions around technology use.

Digital technology is embedded in early childhood

Most children (95%) have access to at least one digital device including smart TVs (86%), tablets (77%) and even smartphones (56%).
Children aged 5 and under spend around 1 hour and 22 minutes a day on screens.
Parents’ attitudes towards devices, previous parenting experiences and other family members all shape children’s digital experiences.
Children from lower-income households are significantly less likely to have access to devices than those from higher-income households. While access may not be necessary in the early years, inequalities can have longer-term implications, including less opportunity to develop media literacy skills.

Parents see value in digital technology for their children and family life

Digital technology can be used to support learning and development, including for literacy, numeracy, language learning and problem solving.
A third (33%) of parents with a vulnerable child say that their child uses devices to support a learning or development need.
Two in five parents (41%) say they give their child a device to keep them occupied, helping them balance the competing demands of busy modern life. However, 41% also say they feel judged by others when using a device to occupy a child in public.

Concerns about screen use, online content and platform design are common among parents of young children

Nearly two-fifths (38%) of parents are concerned about the amount of time their child aged 5 and under spends on screens.
Nearly a third (31%) of parents are concerned about their child accessing age-inappropriate content such as violent or mature material.
Platform features like autoplay and recommender systems can increase exposure to unsuitable content, prolong screen engagement and make it harder for children to sustain attention.

Parents are taking steps to support their children’s online safety and media literacy

89% of parents have at least one rule to manage device use and 83% have set up at least one parental control. Parents are also having conversations about technology including about screen time (43%), household rules (38%) and how technology works (27%).
Three in five parents (59%) worry about the impact of their own device use on their children. Many parents identify role-modelling healthy digital behaviours as an important part of supporting their children.

Families need support to navigate digital technology and support healthy digital habits in the early years

Industry should ensure digital services are safe and age-appropriate by design. Services should also make it easy for parents to identify appropriate content and to find, set up and manage safety settings and parental controls.

Government should build on its screen time guidance for under-5s and support parents and early years settings to put it into practice. This should include practical support for parents on selecting age- and developmentally appropriate content, alongside funded training for early years professionals.

Parents remain central to decisions about how young children use digital technology. They need clear, practical and age-appropriate advice to help them make informed decisions about the devices and content their children access, and the routines and boundaries they set at home.