Survey finds one in five children spend over five hours a day online

Around one in five children spend more than five hours a day on the internet, according to a mini-survey by the Czech Statistics Office presented on Wednesday.

The largest group of children, about 22 percent, spend around three hours online each day. Children most often use the internet to play games, with boys playing significantly more than girls. Around nine in ten children said they used artificial intelligence tools at least occasionally.

More than 83,500 pupils from about 5,500 classes at roughly 1,100 schools took part in the survey, which focused on students in grades four to nine of primary schools and lower grades of multi-year grammar schools.

While the results are not fully representative, Statistics Office head Marek Rojíček said the high participation rate gives them strong indicative value.