JIM study 2018: 20 years of research on media use of young people

With a high-level event on 28 November 2018, the Pedagogical Media Research Centre Southwest mpfs (Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest) celebrated the 20 year anniversary of the JIM study (Jugend, Information, Medien – Youth, Information, Media). The representative, long-term study has been mapping the media use of young people (12 to 19 years old) in Germany each year since 1998. 

Date 2018-12-18 Author German Safer Internet Centre
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For the past 20 years, the mpfs has been collecting basic data on adolescents' media usage in Germany by means of a representative series of studies called "JIM". The JIM study is conducted jointly by mpfs and the Südwestrundfunk (SWR) as a collaborative effort of the two State Media Authorities of Baden-Württemberg (LFK) and Rhineland-Palatinate (LMK). For the purpose of the present issue of the study series, 1,200 adolescents aged between 12 and 19 from all over Germany were interviewed over the phone during the period from 28 May to 5 August 2018.

Adolescents grow up in an environment equipped with a wide range of media devices. In this day and age, practically all families have access to smartphones, computers/laptops and the internet. Televisions are present in 95 per cent of households; radios and DVD players can be found in four out of five homes. 77 per cent of all families use a video streaming service like Netflix or Amazon Prime (compared to 54 per cent in 2017). 67 per cent of individuals use tablets, and televisions with internet access are present in three out of five families. Wearables such as internet radios are available in just about every fifth family. Digital language assistants like Alexa are used by 14 per cent of 12- to 19-year-old young people. As far as device ownership for adolescents is concerned, the smartphone dominates at 97 per cent. 71 per cent own a computer or laptop. Two thirds have their own gaming consoles (66 per cent). Every second person has their own TV (50 per cent) or radio (45 per cent). One in four young people has a DVD player or hard disk recorder or their own tablet (26 per cent respectively). Smart TVs (22 per cent) can be found in every fifth adolescent's room. E-book readers (12 per cent), wearables (11 per cent) or streaming boxes (8 per cent) are owned by approximately one tenth of teenagers. Digital language assistants (6 per cent) and internet radio stations (5 per cent) are the least widely used.

The trust of news services was also explored in the JIM 2018 study. Here, the news and daily topics of the TV channel ARD come out on top and are the most trusted by the young people. Second place is taken by regional print daily newspapers, which come before public radio stations. Significant differences can be seen in the educational background of girls and boys. Generally, adolescents with a higher level of formal education show much greater confidence in quality journalism.

Similar to the previous year, the proportion of regular readers of printed books is at 39 per cent. Every second girl, but only every third boy regularly reads books. With 16 per cent, however, every sixth adolescent among the 12- to 19-year-old group is a non-reader and never reads books in their free time. E-books have still not permeated the daily lives of young people. Only 7 per cent regularly read e-books.

In 2018, music streaming services such as Spotify rank first (61 per cent) among 12 to 19 year olds. 57 per cent listen to live radio broadcasts or YouTube several times a week. A quarter of youths listen to music on a handheld console at least several times a week. Differences between girls and boys can only be found in music on radio stations; here, girls are a little more selective. When observing age progression, it becomes clear that streaming services are used more frequently based on the age of the adolescents. Compared to the previous year, the use of music via streaming services has become significantly more relevant, with ten percentage points more.

91 per cent of 12 to 19 year olds have access to the internet (regardless of the distribution channel) on a daily basis. Self-assessment of the duration of internet usage has declined. Teenagers spend 214 minutes online on an average weekday (compared to 221 minutes in 2017). The largest share of online use is accounted for by communication (35 per cent), but entertainment is just behind at 31 per cent. Nearly a quarter of the time is spent playing games and 10 per cent is used to search for information. While boys spend one third of their online time playing games, this is much lower for girls, at 10 per cent. Girls, on the other hand, spend a much larger proportion of their time communicating online (41 per cent), whereas boys tend to communicate a little less (30 per cent). Also, regarding entertainment content such as music, videos or picture, girls and young women are ahead in terms of usage (37 per cent compared to 27 per cent for boys). With regard to the age of young people, there is now hardly any difference, even if the youngest are slightly more prone to play games.

Once again, WhatsApp is at the forefront of online communication. 95 per cent of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 in Germany regularly exchange information via this communication platform – on average, they receive 36 messages per day. Instagram (67 per cent) is in second place, followed by Snapchat with 54 per cent regularly using this platform. Facebook (15 per cent) is only used regularly by a handful of youths. Compared to the preceding year, Instagram has seen an increase of ten percentage points, and the regular use of Snapchat has also increased, by five percentage points. Teenagers' use of Facebook has decreased by ten percentage points.

Again in 2018, half of 12 to 19 year olds own their own television set (50 per cent). However, the different types of use of televisions have emerged, and part of the television use takes place online. Almost half of the adolescents regularly watch television content at the time it is being broadcast, that is to say linearly, and on TV. Only half as many regularly watch TV programmes on YouTube (18 per cent) or via media libraries of television service providers (17 per cent). One in ten young people regularly uses the live streaming function of TV channels on the internet (11 per cent) or watch recorded TV programmes at least several times a week (10 per cent). 79 per cent of young people have used motion pictures in the form of programmes, series and films on the internet (compared to 68 per cent in 2017 and 64 per cent in 2016). 60 per cent of adolescents say that they watch YouTube videos at least several times a week, with nearly half of them using Netflix and 22 per cent Amazon Prime, while 8 per cent use media libraries of television broadcasters‘ content. The proportion of adolescents who use at least one of these platforms several times a week or more frequently to watch programmes, series or films, lies at 82 per cent.

Regardless of content, 90 per cent of adolescents use YouTube at least several times a week, and 64 per cent use it daily. The proportion of daily users is lower among children of higher age (67 per cent for 12-13 year olds, 69 per cent for 14-15 year olds, 66 per cent for 16-17 year olds, and 54 per cent for 18-19 year olds). Accessing YouTube is primarily done with a smartphone. Teenagers mostly watch music videos (54 per cent at least several times a week), funny clips (41 per cent), comedy or funny videos by YouTubers (35 per cent) and "Let‘s play" videos (32 per cent), which are mostly about digital gaming. Videos in which people report on their everyday lives or sports videos are regularly viewed by 24 per cent of teenagers. 23 per cent of them watch videos featuring YouTubers covering breaking news.

As an information medium, adolescents primarily use the internet to search for things on Google or search engines in general (85 per cent). But YouTube is also used by about two-thirds to inform themselves about specific topics. This makes YouTube a more relevant research tool than third-party online encyclopedias like Wikipedia, which are regularly used by one-third of the respondents.

Digital games using a computer, console, smartphone and tablet play a central role in the media repertoire of young people. Nearly three out of five teenagers regularly play digital games. If one compares the various game options in detail, smartphone games are the most important in the media life of adolescents and are used regularly by a total of 40 per cent. Console games come in second, which are played by a quarter of respondents at least several times a week. Computer games which are played on a handheld console or in an offline version on the PC are regularly used by 17 per cent. Fortnite is a game that appeared in 2018 and immediately took first place in the ranking of the most popular games; the game was named by a fifth of the respondents. Fortnite is number one in 2018 for all age groups, apart from adult gamers who prefer FIFA.

In addition, as part of the JIM study 2018, adolescents were asked how often they have already encountered hate messages on the internet. One in five has regularly been confronted with hate messages. 17 per cent occasionally encounter hostility on the internet and 28 per cent rarely do so. Every third person has never been confronted with hate on the internet. Boys are more likely to encounter hostile messages, and the older they get, the greater the chance of encountering hateful comments. On questioning the platform on which young people receive hateful messages the most, the general answer was YouTube and Instagram, occasionally also Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, online games and the comments sections of news services.

The JIM study series document twenty exciting years in which the development towards a digital and multimedia society has gained considerable momentum and has also fundamentally changed the daily lives of adolescents. The study documentation shows how young people, on the one hand, quickly pick up new techniques and offers, and integrate them into their lives. On the other hand, certain usage patterns remain very steady, as with the use of books or television, for instance. Even though the internet rapidly gained in relevance for young people from the mid-2000s onwards, and became more and more commonplace, the frequency of watching television remained largely steady with about 90 per cent regularly watching. Only the spread of smartphones and the wide range of video platforms such as YouTube and Netflix have slowly caused a decline in the frequency of television use in recent years.

Twenty years of the JIM study have shown how, on the one hand, the transformation of technologies and services is taking place more and more rapidly, and, on the other hand, that the pattern underlying adolescents' use remains relatively stable. As children of the digital world, even today‘s youths will come across new techniques and functions and come to terms with new offers and formats. From an educator's perspective, one could interpret this juxtaposition of rapid change and regularity in the sense that it is not important to be able to use every current service in one‘s own everyday life and to perfectly operate the latest technology. The basis of media education should therefore be to understand the needs of young people and to classify their current media use regarding this basis. The foundation of media education activities would therefore be to develop one‘s own stance towards the topic of media, to exemplify values and to impart basic skills for the digital world. These basic skills should enable young people to evaluate and reflect on their actions, to understand the mechanisms of the media system and, in the best case, to take advantage of the diverse media possibilities and to see media as a tool to express themselves and to handle it confidently. The periodic results of the JIM study help to relay these skills and to be a competent contact point for adolescents, and to better classify and understand the adolescents' perspectives.

The latest JIM study (as well as all JIM studies since 1998) are available for download at www.mpfs.de.

Find out more information about the work of the German Safer Internet Centre (SIC) generally, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services, or find similar information for Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.

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