Engl. transl.: KIM 2020: Study of the media use of 6- to 13-year-olds in Germany

The topic of digitization, media use and media consumption by children has moved even more to the fore in 2020. The pandemic with school closings and drastic restrictions in work and leisure also affected the children in their entire everyday and social life. The situation at home may have changed due to home office or short-time work by parents, school often did not take place or only took place digitally and the usual leisure and sports activities were only possible to a very limited extent, if at all. Meeting friends to play was also subject to restrictions. In this respect, the various media took on a new role. Be it as a work tool for school, to communicate with friends and family or to pass the time. The task of the KIM study (Childhood, Internet, Media), which has been published by the Southwest Media Education Research Association (mpfs) since 1999, is to record the media use of six to 13 year old children in Germany. In 2020, the question arose as to whether carrying out the investigation made sense at all against the background of the seriously changed everyday situation. However, given the continuity of the study series over 20 years, it seemed absolutely imperative to also record and document the special situation of the pandemic. Only the survey period of the KIM study was postponed from early summer to early autumn, because in view of the dynamic and unpredictable specifications for contact restrictions in spring 2020, a systematic personal survey was carried out in the families on site could not have been guaranteed. During the survey period itself, everyday life had largely normalized, especially for children in elementary schools - school could take place after the summer holidays just as most of the time (only four percent of the children surveyed had no regular school lessons) as did many leisure and sports activities (KIM Study 2020, p.2)