They consumed this material as entertainment, not as advertising
In the quiet hours children spend scrolling through their devices, something largely invisible is happening: researchers in Spain have found that young people absorb fourteen minutes of advertising for every hour online — more than television ever delivered — much of it disguised as the entertainment they sought in the first place. A study of Chilean households, led by the University of La Rioja, reveals that the boundary between content and commerce has dissolved so thoroughly that children no longer know when they are being sold to. What is at stake is not merely attention, but the formation of critical minds in an age when persuasion has learned to wear the face of friendship.
- Children between ten and fourteen are exposed to advertising at rates that surpass television, with some browsing sessions consumed by ads more than eighty percent of the time.
- The deeper danger is not the volume but the invisibility — unboxing videos and influencer recommendations are absorbed as entertainment, bypassing the skepticism children might otherwise apply.
- Young people are also encountering ads for alcohol, vehicles, and adult services, particularly when borrowing a parent's phone, because app age ratings do not govern the ads served within them.
- Ironically, children actively resist traditional ads — over half ignore them entirely — yet remain highly receptive to sponsored content that feels like genuine recommendation.
- Researchers are now developing advertising literacy programs, teaching children to interrogate the origin, intent, and persuasive design behind the content they consume.
- Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation has funded an expanded study, signaling institutional recognition that digital critical thinking must become a foundational skill for the century ahead.
Researchers at Spain's International University of La Rioja have uncovered something both simple and sobering: children absorb fourteen minutes of advertising for every hour they spend online — a rate that exceeds traditional television exposure, and one that in some browsing sessions swells to occupy more than eighty percent of screen time.
The study followed five hundred and one households in Santiago, Chile, observing children between ten and fourteen as they navigated internet-connected devices. Lead investigator Beatriz Feijoo Fernández, working with colleagues from the University of Navarra, documented not just how much advertising children encountered, but how little of it they actually recognized. While most young people could identify a standard banner ad on YouTube or Instagram, they consistently failed to see the advertising embedded in influencer content — the unboxing videos, the casual product endorsements, the sponsored entertainment that carries no visible label. They consumed it as culture, not commerce.
The advertising landscape children navigate breaks down across familiar categories: online games account for nearly a quarter of ads seen, followed by food delivery, fashion, and entertainment. But the research also surfaced a more troubling pattern — children regularly encounter ads for alcohol, automobiles, and adult services, especially when using a parent's device. App store age ratings govern content, not the advertisements served within it, leaving a significant gap in protection.
The paradox Feijoo identifies is that children themselves prefer this blurred terrain. They ignore or resent traditional ads, but welcome sponsored content that feels like entertainment. More than half skip standard ads entirely; almost none click on them. Yet they remain open to marketing that doesn't announce itself as such.
Feijoo's team, now funded by Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation, is expanding the work into what she calls advertising literacy — teaching children to ask who created a piece of content, why it was made, and what it is trying to achieve. The researchers argue that this kind of critical questioning should be treated not as an elective skill but as a core competency of digital life, as essential as reading itself.
Researchers at Spain's International University of La Rioja have spent the past several years watching how children interact with advertising on their phones, and what they found is both straightforward and unsettling: young people are absorbing fourteen minutes of ads for every hour they spend online. That's more advertising exposure than children get from traditional television, and in some stretches of browsing, ads occupy more than eighty percent of their screen time.
The research began with a study of five hundred and one households in Santiago, Chile, where children between ten and fourteen years old were observed using internet-connected mobile devices. Beatriz Feijoo Fernández, the lead investigator, worked alongside researchers from the University of Navarra and a social management firm to document exactly what advertising these young people encountered and how they responded to it. The findings were striking enough that Feijoo's team has now received funding from Spain's Ministry of Science and Innovation to expand the work further, examining what she calls "advertising literacy"—the ability of children to recognize when they're being sold to, and to think critically about it.
What makes the situation more complicated than simple ad saturation is that children are remarkably poor at identifying certain kinds of advertising at all. When researchers asked the young people in the study about the ads they saw, most could spot traditional banner advertisements, especially on YouTube and Instagram. But they largely failed to recognize what the researchers call "camouflaged" advertising—the unboxing videos where influencers open products, the casual product recommendations from YouTubers and Instagram personalities, the sponsored content that looks and feels like entertainment rather than a sales pitch. These young people consumed this material as entertainment, not as advertising, which means they were absorbing marketing messages without the mental guard they might otherwise raise.
Feijoo notes that the findings from Chile likely apply directly to Spain, since children there use phones at similar ages, follow the same social media platforms, and watch the same Spanish-language influencers. The advertising landscape breaks down predictably: online games account for twenty-three percent of the ads children see, followed by restaurants and food delivery at eighteen percent, entertainment at eight percent, and fashion at eight percent. But the research also uncovered something more troubling. Children are regularly exposed to advertisements for products never intended for them—cars, alcoholic beverages, services designed for adults—particularly when they're using a parent's phone. The age ratings that app stores assign to applications don't control what advertisements appear inside them, leaving a gap between the content a child is supposed to access and the marketing messages they actually encounter.
The paradox Feijoo describes is that children themselves seem to want this blurred boundary between entertainment and advertising. More than half of them simply ignore standard ads entirely, while only three percent actually click on them. They find traditional advertising annoying because it interrupts what they're doing. But they're drawn to ads that feel like entertainment, that advertise products they care about—toys, snacks—and that don't feel like interruptions at all. The researchers are now working to understand how children develop critical thinking skills around digital content, asking them to question where information comes from, who created it, why it was published, and what the creator's actual intention might be. The goal is to reshape how schools teach children to encounter digital media, so that skepticism and questioning become automatic rather than rare.
The research team, which now includes investigators from universities across Spain and Chile, is essentially arguing that advertising literacy should be treated as a core digital competency for the twenty-first century. Without it, children remain vulnerable to persuasion tactics they don't even recognize as persuasion.
Citações Notáveis
They perceive standard advertising as annoying because it interrupts their mobile activity, and only pay attention if it advertises products that interest them in an entertaining way.— Beatriz Feijoo Fernández, lead researcher
Children are exposed through mobile devices to advertisements for products and services not designed for them, such as cars or alcoholic beverages, especially when using their parents' phones.— Beatriz Feijoo Fernández
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does it matter that children can't identify influencer endorsements as advertising?
Because they're absorbing a sales message without any of the mental resistance they'd normally put up. When a child sees a banner ad, they know someone is trying to sell them something. When an influencer they like casually mentions a product, it feels like a friend's recommendation. The persuasion works better precisely because it's invisible.
Is this just a problem of children being naive, or is there something about how these platforms work that makes it harder to spot?
It's both. Children are still developing critical thinking skills, yes. But the platforms and creators have also gotten very sophisticated at making advertising look like content. There's real financial incentive to blur that line. A child might not be naive so much as outmatched.
The study mentions that children ignore standard ads but engage with entertainment-style advertising. Doesn't that suggest they actually prefer this format?
They do seem to prefer it, but that's the trap. They prefer it because it doesn't feel like advertising. If you told them, "This is a sales pitch," they might feel differently. The preference is built on not recognizing what's actually happening.
What would advertising literacy actually look like in a classroom?
Teaching children to ask questions: Who made this? Who paid for it? What are they trying to get me to do? Why did this appear in my feed right now? It's not about making them cynical. It's about giving them the tools to see the machinery underneath the content.
Does the research suggest that parents should restrict their children's phone use?
The study doesn't make that argument. But it does show that even when children use their parents' phones, they're still seeing ads meant for adults. So restriction alone doesn't solve it. The real answer seems to be education—helping children understand what they're looking at, regardless of how much time they spend online.
Is there any indication this is getting worse over time?
The research doesn't track change over time, but the trend is clear: as advertising gets more sophisticated and integrated into entertainment, the line between the two keeps blurring. Without intervention, it's likely to get harder for children to tell the difference, not easier.