Two top Social Media Topics - Childrens' Use and Access by Mobile Phone

An increasing number of youngsters are using social media sites, regardless of whether they are underage.

This is the conclusion reached in a new Ofcom investigation, which found that a quarter of children aged between eight and 13 are signed up to a site.

However, the likes of Facebook, Bebo and MySpace have minimum user ages of 13, which the nation's youngsters seem to be discrediting.

Of those questioned by the regulator, 83 per cent said they have a profile, but it can only be seen and accessed by friends.

Four per cent, meanwhile, revealed that no-one is able to view their profile page.

Nielsen recently made similar findings, as it showed that in October 2009, 37 per cent of five to seven year olds had visited Facebook, though were not necessarily signed up.

Many children are also downloading content online, it found, which is prevalent in the eight to 15 age bracket.

ComScore recently found that 30.8 per cent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites using their handsets in January.

This marks an increase from 22.5 per cent a year ago, while access to Facebook alone increased by 112 per cent over the past 12 months.

Source: Ofcom