Television is now less than half of children's viewing time, in competition with the internet and computer games.  More than one in three children told researchers the possession they could least live without was their computer.

The overall time spent in front of screens by five to 16-year-olds in Britain was nearly six hours a day. The survey by the Childwise research agency found that YouTube was the most used website, followed by various social networking sites.

The survey of 1,800 children, taken last autumn, found they were spending 2.7 hours per day watching television, 1.5 hours on the internet and 1.3 hours on games consoles.

You can read more information about the findings at on the Guardians website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/16/television.socialnetworking