More than half of children ages 0 to 11, essentially Generation Alpha, will use YouTube this year, compared with just 4.6% on TikTok. By generation, YouTube will have nearly double the penetration of TikTok among millennials this year, almost four times as many Gen Xers, and about eight times the penetration among baby boomers.

TikTok usage among children and teens far outpaces the average of the total population. TikTok is the top platform for ages 7 to 17, with half of all kids in the age group visiting at least once a month, according to polling from Media Technology Monitor (MTM).

The kids are not all right: While the CivicScience data shows that younger demographic groups think they’re spending less time on social media and feel better about its mental health impact, other data points suggest otherwise. In a December poll of Gen Z consumers from Morning Consult, 38% said they spend more than four hours per day on social media.

The new kids on the block like Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery charged record-high CPMs, driven by their brand power and a tight spending market. Early efforts have struggled, though. Netflix vastly underdelivered on its viewership estimates for its first slate of advertisers, which may cause CPMs to dip down at the next upfront period or may restore some advertiser faith in older channels.

New kids, new rules: Retail media advertising networks exploded in 2022, with dozens of retailers launching ad businesses in hopes of capturing shifting revenue budgets. But rising interest rates and softer spending are mixing poorly with a lack of standards for the relatively new ad channel.

On the other hand, Twitter (which has been the subject of many brand safety concerns in the past few months) disbanded its Trust and Safety Council, which was founded in 2016 to “address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform,” according to NPR. As platforms choose their sides on the safety issue, will consumer trust follow suit? More like this:.

After the Facebook Files report came out, Instagram was also pressured into suspending its upcoming “Instagram for Kids” project, which was supposed to help funnel younger users into the app. That suspension could hurt growth even more.

Indiana’s attorney general filed two lawsuits against TikTok over the safety of users’ data and the platform’s treatment of underage users—including how it exposes children to drugs, alcohol, profanity, and explicit material. One lawsuit accuses TikTok of falsely claiming it was appropriate for users between 13 and 17 years old.

Costumes account for the majority of spend: Kids and adult costumes are expected to hit $2.9 billion in sales, while consumers will spend $710 million on pet costumes. Looking into the crystal ball: Online search is the most popular way consumers get costume ideas, followed by browsing retail stores and ideas from friends and family.

For example, a data breach of Tallaheasee-based Florida Healthy Kids Corp. affected 3.5 million individuals. And a breach of University of Medical Center Southern Nevada’s system put over 1.3 million patients’ data at risk. But the uptick of healthcare data breaches isn’t surprising, considering many organizations lack the necessary armor:.

Both ad plans have something in common: Each streamer is pledging to run just four to five minutes of ads every hour while refraining from placing spots in kid-friendly programming. Netflix still has some issues to fix: Its ad-supported tier won't initially include all of the service’s programming, which may be its most obvious flaw.

I guess not the way you're training your kids. I'd imagine you're taking it very seriously. Andrew Lipsman:. Yes. Sara Lebow:. All right. Blake, what did you buy this Prime Day? Blake Droesch:. I didn't buy anything. I didn't buy anything because I really have only used Prime Day in the past to buy a big electronic that I need.

Though Gen Z hasn’t seen as many coronavirus casualties as older generations have, nearly all of today’s children, teens, and young adults have experienced major disruptions in family life, education, employment, and socialization. This has led to unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety.

For example, in March, Amwell’s SilverCloud Health platform launched a program featuring video content and interactive tools to improve family mental health, including support for new parents, teens, and children.

Parents who use One Medical could be more likely to bring their kids to the same doctor’s office simply due to factors like convenience and low cost, especially if their employer is covering membership fees. One Medical partners with large employers like Google and Yelp, for instance.

More than half of US kids 16 and younger play Roblox, per The Verge. The platform hosts 9.5 million developers and offers over 24 million “experiences,” including games, in-game concerts, promos, and events.

Xpeng Robotics: In a bid to fulfill the quintessential childhood dream of owning a pony, this startup—backed by Tesla rival Xpeng—raised $100 million in a Series A round to build a rideable robot unicorn for children. It can also reportedly function as a service robot, transporting snacks in offices.

The Department of Education did a bunch of research right after the pandemic, and it found that about more than one in six kids in the United States live in an area of the country where the children's book circulation is under 10 per child. So if you know how much children like to read and how much you are supposed to read to them, especially when they're very little, that's nuts.

Speed bump: In an attempt to help children and teens limit their screen time, TikTok has imposed a 60-minute daily screen time limit for users 18 and younger. If they want to keep using the app, they will have to enter a passcode, forcing them to “make an active decision” to extend their time on the platform.

Consumers will spend $224 per person (including children) this year, and we project that cost will rise to $279 per person in 2026. This article originally appeared in Insider Intelligence's Digital Health Briefing—a daily recap of top stories reshaping the healthcare industry. Subscribe to have more hard-hitting takeaways delivered to your inbox daily. Are you a client? Click here to subscribe.

Expanding the brand: Roblox’s painful 2022 was largely due to a failure to expand its user base beyond children. Its reputation as a children’s video game propelled it to success during the pandemic but also invited repeated controversies. Its answer to those problems has been to expand to new regions and attract players of all ages. In Q3, 46% of Roblox users identified as under 13 years old.

The new kids on the block are seriously struggling to adapt to advertising. 2022 was the year of streaming services going all-in on ad-supported subscription tiers, but not everything went to plan. Netflix reportedly charged extraordinarily high CPMs for its new ad-supported tier, but massively under-delivered impressions to its first batch of partners.

Issues with connected TV fraud, social media ads displaying alongside child sexual abuse content, artificially inflated podcasting figures, and a general addressability crisis make it hard to track the actual value of an ad buy. Because of that, the insurance industry’s digital ad spending is slowing down in 2022 compared with last year, though spending will still grow to $12.15 billion.

As parents, they took to Facebook in the 2000s and 2010s to post countless pictures of their kids, travels, and food. But that excitement has faded, while concerns about privacy, misinformation, and inflammatory content have risen. Meanwhile, platforms that appeal to younger audiences, like TikTok and Snapchat, haven’t entirely filled the void.

Isn't he the one who puts the coal in the stockings or he eats the children or something like that? Sara Lebow:. I always assumed it was Santa's job to do the coal. It seems inefficient to have a different guy do it. Zak Stambor:. I was just thinking of the same thing. Jeremy Goldman:. Offshoring. Sara Lebow:. Well, Santa has already offshored. Santa is not US labor.