Engagement trends in all their forms are changing, with us engaging online in increasing proportion and new environments like AR and VR through AI-influenced means, among others.

Each of which will likely have the biggest impact on next-generation consumers, in defining how they relate to each other from here on out. This younger cohort will set the stage for the next wave of connection, and with that as its backdrop, this new report from digital wellbeing provider Qustodio covers some interesting ground in its analysis of teen user trends from around the world.

Qustodio's "Born connected: The rise of the AI generation" runs to 115 pages, so there is a lot to digest, based on app and online tool usage surveys conducted with over 400,000 families with children aged 4-18.

You can download the full report here, but in this post, we'll take a look at some of the highlights.

The report will begin by investigating how children spend their time online and the manner in which they spend their time engaging with applications such as the popular gaming platform Roblox, which, in a way, previews the metaverse in the manner users interact through digital avatars in 3D environments.

That bodes well for Meta's future prospects in this area, though this user segment will be a while before it is at the center market for its metaverse offerings.

But the more striking finding for social media marketers was the nearly 2 hours per day that kids were spending on TikTok.

Average minutes per day spent in the app in 2023: children aged 4 to 18 spent, on average, 112 minutes per day in the app, up 107 minutes from 2022.

Which made TikTok far and away the most used social media platform among this age group.

Instagram followed, then Facebook, and not surprisingly, Pinterest.

In any event, it is also interesting to note that Snapchat is not placed in the "Social Media" category here but under "Communication" instead, where the data shows that it would have been second in popularity in the social media app, it deserves a place on the list.
The trends are not too surprising, but interesting to see how much time kids spend in each app, and what these might mean for future interactive behaviors.

The report also tracks the growth of adoption of generative AI, specifically how many young users have accessed OpenAI's text and image generation tools.
According to the above, approximately 20% of the children visited the OpenAI website in 2023, making it one of the 18th most visited sites in the cohort for the year.

Apart from this, the full report also studies parental supervision and how the parents are trying to ensure that their kids remain safe in various apps, other than gaming trends, education apps, and much more.
There's some interesting insight into the primary engagement behaviors of younger users if you do target that group; consider where they are engaging and how you can best reach them with offers.