CGH Medical Center issued the following announcement on Nov. 19.
Do you download apps for your child to play with on your tablet or smartphone? Then you need to know: Your little one may be exposed to questionable ads. That's the word from a new study in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics.
The study looked at 135 different apps used by kids ages 5 and under, including TV show-inspired games and apps marketed as educational (such as games that help kids learn to count). What did they find? Kids are exposed to a lot of commercials. Ninety-five percent of the apps overall (and 100 percent of the free apps) contained advertising. The high rate of commercial interruptions found in these apps could distract kids from play and learning, the researchers suggested.
That's not all. Some apps contained banner ads that the study's authors said could be manipulative or misleading. And sometimes the content seemed inappropriate for kids, they further noted.
Among other things, the study authors found that:
Some apps contained pop-up ads that couldn't be closed until after the entire ad was viewed. In some cases, watching these video ads could actually take longer than playing the game.
Children were sometimes invited to watch an ad in exchange for an item that would make their game experience better in some way.
Ads sometimes used commercial characters to get kids to buy game items or extra playing time. That practice is banned in children's TV advertising, the researchers noted.
Some ads encouraged kids to share their score or to rate a game in app stores or on social media. A few apps also requested location information. This was likely done to allow certain functions during play. But it could put kids' privacy at risk, researchers said.
Parents have choices
Young children use mobile devices an average of one hour a day, according to one of the researchers. And yet ads that appear in apps lack regulation (unlike TV ads for kids), according to the researchers. So parents may want to review them before letting kids play, the research suggests.
Original source can be found here.
Source: CGH Medical Center
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