Extent of Use of Mobile Phones Among Children and Adolescents in Israel

In recent years a number of studies have investigated the extent of use of mobile phones among young people, as well as additional aspects of their use.  The following is a summary of the main findings from some of them.

• Educated Use of Mobile Phones in the Student's Environment, an Educational-Instructional Program and Evaluation Survey – "Mobile Generation"
  Recently, the findings of the evaluation survey performed as part of the "Mobile Generation" (Hebrew) Program were published. This program is an Instructional-Educational Program intended for minimizing exposure to electromagnetic radiation among children and adolescents in Israel. The program, which took place in 2012-2013, was focused on non-ionizing radiation emitted by mobile phones and aimed to implement educated use of this technology. The program was accompanied by an evaluation survey. Prior to the program's start (baseline) and several months after it had ended, the students completed questionnaires that examined their "knowledge, positions and behavior" in relevant issues related to the use of mobile phones.  The description of the students' mobile phone use habits is based on the 1,688 students who completed the baseline survey.

  For the key results of the "Mobile Generation" evaluation survey (Hebrew)

• Data from the annual report "Children in Israel, 2015", the Israel National Council for the Child (Hebrew).
  According to the data, 83% of children aged 8-15 years have a smart phone. The youngest child reported to have a smart phone was 6 years old, but most children have a smart phone starting from age 9. The percentage of children who own a smart phone increases with the children's age. A quarter of the children use their smart phones for more than 5 hours a day, with "whatsup", games and talking on the phone being the most prevalent uses among children aged 8-15. Additionally, about 46% of adolescents aged 12-17 were online (surfing the internet with a smart phone or a computer) for 4 hours a day or more.

  (The data relate to Israeli child population in 2014 comprising 2,739,500 children, who are 33% of the entire population).

• "Israelis in the Digital Era" – survey of the Department of of Communications, Academic Stream, College of Management, 2012 (Hebrew).
  The survey included 1200 participants and investigated, among other issues, how the surfers in specific population groups accessed the Internet.  The results indicated that over the last decade smartphones, and later Tablets, became the device of choice for Internet access.

  The findings showed that in the 15-24 year age group, surfers spent about one-fifth of their time on the Internet using mobile phones.  "In the 12-14 age-group not many users had smartphones, so that only 13% of their time was spent surfing the Web using smartphones, while in the 15-24 group many possessed smartphones and considered it a legitimate device for surfing the Internet." 

• Research for Masters' degree, on the subject "Patterns of use of mobile phones by children and adolescents in Israel: extent, characteristics, and factors leading to awareness of risks and risk-taking behavior", 2010.

  The findings of this survey indicated that there is widespread use of mobile phones among children and young adolescents in Israel.  About 70% of the students possessing mobile phones, could be categorized as using them daily (60% of children in primary school and 80% at intermediate level school).  Extent of use was greater among the affluent, Jews, students in higher grades, Jewish girls, and Arab boys.  Moreover  a high risk-taking behavior was revealed (conversing and texting while crossing the street) and limited use of earphones (only 10% of users took care to use earphones when conversing, and about 60% never used them).

• Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment survey, 2007 (Hebrew).
  The survey revealed that in 2007,in about 58.6% of households with children aged 12-15 at least one child possessed a mobile phone.  In other words, more than half of the children in this age-group possessed a mobile phone.  (The survey comprised about 1000 telephone interviews with parents of children and adolescents aged 12-15, representative of the families with children of that age in Israel. 

References

• Bar-Tsury R.  Consumer kids: use of mobile phones among children and adolescents (aged 12-15). Research and Economic administration Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment, December 2008 (Hebrew). http://www.economy.gov.il/English/Pages/default.aspx
• Mantsur H.  "Patterns of use of mobile phones by children and adolescents in Israel: extent, characteristics, and factors leading to awareness of risks and risk-taking behavior".  Masters' thesis.  Department of Management, Bar Ilan University, mentored by Prof Yona Amitai, 2011). (Hebrew) 
• Dror, Yuval.  "Israelis in the Digital Era-2012", College of Management (5/2012) (Hebrew).
• Data from the annual report "Children in Israel, 2015", the Israel National Council for the Child (Hebrew).