Who Kids Actually Play With Online: What the 2026 Data Shows

Gaming is where children now spend their time

72% of 8 to 17-year-olds in the UK game online, and 55% of all children aged 3 to 17 do. Over half of 8 to 17s use a games console to get online.Ofcom, Children’s Online Experiences / Media Use and Attitudes 2025/6 (May 2026)

In the US, time spent gaming among children under 8 rose 65% in four years, from 23 minutes a day in 2020 to 38 minutes in 2024, overtaking a lot of traditional TV time.Common Sense Media, The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight (2025)

For children roughly 6 to 13, gaming is not a niche hobby, it is the main event. That matters for context: whatever happens socially online mostly happens inside a game or the chat around it.

Most play is with people children already know

The baseline is friends and family. When UK children who game online were asked who they played with, the most common answers were by themselves or with friends and family. Playing with people they know is the norm, not the exception.

Among the youngest US players (0 to 8), 14% often or sometimes play a social game online with people they know, while 9% often or sometimes play with people they do not know. Known contacts outrank strangers.Common Sense Media, Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight (2025)

Playing with people met online is now mainstream too

The headline shift is that playing or interacting with people met only online has become a normal part of childhood gaming, layered on top of playing with friends. It is additive, not a replacement for real-world friendships.

55% of 8 to 17-year-olds in the UK interact with people they have only met online at least some of the time, and 20% (1 in 5) do so all or most of the time.Ofcom, Children’s Online Experiences Research Report (May 2026)

Read plainly: for most families, a child meeting and playing with new people online is not an edge case, it is a regular part of how the games work. Multiplayer titles are designed to connect players, and that is a large part of the appeal.

The wider picture: devices and AI, by the numbers

Two other trends set the context for when and how this play happens.

The phone tipping point is around age 11. Device ownership climbs steeply as children approach secondary school, which is when a lot of independent, unsupervised online time begins.

In the UK, smartphone ownership rises sharply from 56% of 10-year-olds to 83% of 11-year-olds. Ofcom calls starting senior school the tipping point for a first smartphone.Ofcom, Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report 2025/6 (May 2026)

In the US, nearly 1 in 4 children have their own cellphone by age 8, and 40% have their own tablet by age 2. Devices arrive early, and the phone follows a few years later.Common Sense Media, Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight (2025)

AI is already part of the mix. Talking to AI is now common for children and teens, including a small but real share who treat it as someone to talk to.

In the UK, half of 8 to 17s (50%, up from 46% the year before) use generative AI. In the 2025 wave, 1 in 10 (11%) said they had used AI as someone to talk to or as a friend.Ofcom, Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes (2025 and 2025/6)

In the US, 64% of teens say they have used an AI chatbot, and about 3 in 10 use one every day.Pew Research Center, Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025 (Dec 2025)

What the data does and does not say

• Gaming is the center of children’s screen time, and most of it is social play with people they know.
• Playing with people met only online is now common: over half of 8 to 17s do it at least sometimes, 1 in 5 frequently.
• The first phone typically arrives around age 11, which is when more of this happens without a parent nearby.
• AI chat is already a normal tool for this age group, with a minority using it in a more personal, companion-like way.

None of these figures say children should play less or that games are unsafe. They say online, social, multiplayer gaming is simply where a lot of childhood now takes place, and that a meaningful share of it involves people children have only met online. Awareness of that is the useful takeaway.