A parent answers Ofcom's survey for children under eight

The test

Ofcom publishes an annual report on UK children's media habits and attitudes, separate from its adult-focused Online Nation and Media Nations series. The edition current as of 16 September 2026, titled 'Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report' and published 7 May 2025, states that its quantitative findings come from what it calls the 'Children's and Parents' (CaP) Media Literacy Tracker,' which 'comprises three surveys: the Parents Only survey, Children's Online Behaviour and Attitudes (COBA) and Children's Online Knowledge and Understanding (COKU).'

What the evidence says

The report states plainly that for the youngest band it surveys, children aged 3 to 7, 'this is provided by parents or guardians rather than by the children themselves,' a distinction that matters for any figure broken out by that age group. For 2024, the report states that YouTube was used by 84% of children aged 3-17 to watch video on video-sharing platforms, and TikTok by 44%, both 'unchanged since 2023.' An earlier edition, published 29 March 2023 and covering 2022 fieldwork, described a different data-provider mix behind a comparable tracker concept, naming CHILDWISE, which interviewed 2,802 children aged 5 to 18, and the Insights Family, which interviewed 10,173 children aged 3 to 17, as the commissioned research firms; the 2025 edition instead names the tracker itself in the sections reviewed here, a change worth flagging rather than assuming is a like-for-like continuation.

The sample and the variance

Both editions describe a UK-only sample split across explicit age bands, with the youngest band answered by proxy through a parent. That structure means a headline 'children aged 3-17' figure blends self-reported teen behavior with parent-reported toddler behavior, which is not the same evidentiary weight, and Ofcom's own reports caution that the terminology used does not necessarily track the legal categories set out in the UK's Online Safety Act.

What to try next

A reader citing this report for a specific age group should check which age bands are combined into any 'all children' figure, since a change in a blended figure can reflect proxy-reported toddlers as easily as surveyed teenagers. This is an editorial check, not an Ofcom instruction: also confirm whether a year-on-year comparison spans a tracker-name or data-provider change, given the shift observed between the 2023 and 2025 editions here.

• Is the cited figure self-reported by the child or reported by a parent on behalf of a younger child?
• Which specific age band does the figure cover, and is it being generalized to all children aged 3-17?
• Has the underlying tracker's data-provider or branding changed between the editions being compared?

An annual children's tracker is only as comparable across years as its sample and provider description stay stable; Ofcom's own reports are the first place to check whether that is still true.