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Communication with friends (Sept 2020)

In this report, we present data from survey questions about frequency of contact with friends outside of the home through a variety of means. Parents/carers were asked “Over the last week how much per day did your child do the following with their friends (on average)?”. Parents/carers responded on a 6-point scale from “Not at all” to “constantly”, which was converted to a dichotomous variable of “little to no contact” (from responses of “not at all” or “less than once a day”) and “regular contact” (from any of the four responses between “once a day” to “constantly”). Contact through means including phone, video chat, WhatsApp/text messaging and social media were assessed. Gaming was added a means of communication on 24/04/2020 in response to participant feedback and face-to-face contact was added on 01/06/2020 when lockdown restrictions eased. As such, these means of contact are not included in the data for the lockdown period. Data is also presented for parent/carer reports of their child having little to no contact through any of these means during the time points assessed, as opposed to regular contact through at least one means.

This report presents:

1. Data for how much of the sample used each means of contact for making regular contact with friends, and how much used each means for making little to no contact with friends, split by:

    • Age group
    • Age group and gender
    • Age group and household income
    • Age group and presence of a special educational need (SEN)

2. Data for how much of the sample used ‘little to no contact through any means’ vs ‘regular contact through at least one means’, split by each of the above groups