Survey: Number of kids on the Internet has tripled in three years

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Children are fueling the Internet explosion, according to a new national survey that found the number of 2- to 17-year-olds logging into cyberspace has tripled since 1997.

''The notion that children are an emerging market is no longer true. They have emerged,'' said Peter Grunwald, president of the San Mateo-based Grunwald Associates, which conducted the survey.

The survey found that more than 25 million children in the United States are on the Internet, up from 8 million in 1997. And by the year 2005, the number of children online is expected to increase by another 70 percent, the survey projected.

Grunwald attributed the growth of kids on the Internet partly to the skyrocketing number of mothers online. The survey showed a quadrupling of moms on the Internet, from 4.5 million in 1997 to 16.4 million by the end of last year.

Children were found to be a primary reason behind household decisions to purchase a computer and gain Internet access, Grunwald said. ''Parents believe the Internet is an important tool for their children's learning and development,'' he said.

Other survey findings included:

-Almost two-thirds of all family households have home computers and 46 percent of them are hooked onto the Internet.

-Girls are logging onto the Web as much or more often than boys are.

-Schools will likely surpass homes as the primary gateway to the Internet for children by 2005.

Grunwald Associates, a market research and consulting firm, completed the survey by randomly reaching 1,735 U.S. households that included computer users and nonusers.

The online population findings by Grunwald fall roughly in line with other analyst forecasts. Jupiter Communications of New York has projected that the number of 2- to 17-year-olds using the Internet will more than double from 21.4 million at the end of 1999 to 46.7 million by 2005.