Parents more likely to buy tablets: study

TORONTO – A new study confirms kids do have it good nowadays, at least when it comes to having access to tech toys.

Parents are more likely to purchase smartphones, tablets, video game consoles and subscribe to Netflix than the average consumer, suggests a report by the Media Technology Monitor.

Based on telephone surveys with more than 6,000 anglophone Canadians last fall and this spring, the report found households with children under 18 were more likely to be teeming with digital devices.

About 41 per cent of the parents surveyed said they owned a tablet, versus the 30 per cent response rate for everyone else. And three quarters of the parents polled had a smartphone, compared to just over half of the other respondents.

Families were also 70 per cent more likely to be part of the so-called “four screen” trend, with 17 per cent of parents saying they owned a smartphone, tablet, computer and TV that were all connected to the Internet.

Just over a third of the parents said they subscribed to Netflix, compared to about one in four of the consumers polled without kids in their home.

Some other statistics in the report:

— Three quarters of the parents surveyed said they use social networks — compared to 62 per cent for everyone else — and they were bigger users of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

— A similar number of parents said they multi-tasked with another Internet-connected device while watching TV, compared to almost two thirds of the others

— Nearly nine in 10 parents said they watch online video, versus 73 per cent for non-parents

The survey results are considered accurate within 1.2 percentage points 19 times out of 20.