Kids' online time skyrockets; where is the church

As a father of three, a former children's pastor and a web developer, I read the latest survey of kids (2-11 yrs) from Nielson with both excitement and dread. Here are the basic numbers:

• In May 2009, children aged 2-11 comprised nearly 16 million, or 9.5 percent, of the active online universe this a 18 percent increase since 2004
• Time spent online among children aged 2-11 increased 63 percent in the last five years, from nearly 7 hours in May 2004 to more than 11 hours online in May 2009
• 26.3 percent of the online adult population, or 38.2 million, have children 11 years old or younger in the household 

Kids as customers

This means that kids are the target of commercial interests online. And according to a 2008 study by Consumer Reports Web Watch and the Mediatech Foundation, often kid-oriented sites take advantage of their customers:

We discovered that the digital world offers a wealth of opportunity for young children to play and learn. But even in this small sample of 10 families we found–too easily, in several circumstances–repeated examples of attempts to manipulate children for the sake of commerce.

And here is an assortment of what we're offering when you search for christian kids web sites. Not to be too disparaging, but the church does not make it easy to find good Christian web sites as compared to commercial sites like Club Penguin or Webkinz or PBS Kids Go!

So where is the church? If you have excellent kids links, please add them to the comments below. Looking for video, games, activities, etc. Why? My idea is to create a small web site/page that offers a better experience for parents to discover faith or values-based web sites for kids.

Tim Bednar, founder Turtle Interactive
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Comments

[Dan Brown]

www.jellytelly.com
The best Christian media on the web for kids in my opinion. Started by the creator of the Veggie Tales.

[Joshua of Catholic Tech Tips]

Great Post!

I have posted about two great Christian Kid's websites on our blog:

• JellyTelly: Online Children’s Video Channel

(http://catholictechtips.stblogs.com/2008/11/04/jelly-telly/)

• EWTN Kids! Learning the Faith has never been so fun.

(http://catholictechtips.stblogs.com/2009/05/05/ewtn-kids/)

I think your idea of making a website directory of good Kid's websites is an awesome idea! God Bless.

[Alex]

The problem is that of quality. Sorry to say that many of the attempts to create these kinds of websites are terrible. Poor quality plagued by inconsistency. I can't even find a decent Christian cartoon that compares to Phineas and Ferb and the like.

[timbednar]

Love Jelly Telly ~ I'll check out the EWTN content. But ummm there has to be more, or are there no parents browsing the net with their kids?

[Steve K.]

Great post, Tim! JellyTelly seems to be the hands-down winner as the only thing remotely quality in this space ...

My other recommendation would be:
http://www.simkids.org/
a site that helps introduce kids to different parts of God's world and to global missions