Nickelodeon releases findings from its ‘Play Life’ research

Nickelodeon has released the findings from its six-city research called ‘Play Life’, conducted as a part of Nestle Milky Bar powers ‘Nickelodeon Let’s Just Play’ co-powered by Surf Excel to be held on October 30, 2010. 'Play Life' is a quantitative research conducted by Hansa Research and reached out to over 600 SEC A kids in the age group of 8 to 14 years across the top 6 metros of India. Using a face-to-face methodology, the kids were interviewed over a close ended structuredquestionnaire in the presence of a parent or guardian. The research studied routine activities of kids like attending school, tuition classes, hobby classes and most importantly, play time. According to the summary of the report:

• Almost all kids watched TV and studied daily; but only 25% kids played outdoor daily. 39% are not active outdoors.

• Out of the 75% kids who do not play outdoors on a daily basis, 38% kids’ parents don’t allow it; the reasons for this are no proper place for kids to play, unsafe play areas and academic pressures. Studies takes second place for kids being inactive.

• 15% of the kids had dedicated play periods daily in their school. One third of respondents claimed that the play period wasn’t regular.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, senior vice president and general manager, Nickelodeon India, said, “The ‘Play Life’ Research has been an eye opener and has thrown up some startling insights. Outdoor play is clearly deprioritised in a kid’s life today. Through Let’s Just Play our world-wide movement, the endeavor at Nickelodeon will be to bring about an attitudinal change in the minds of parents, kids and the key stake holders who influence a child’s life into prioritizing outdoor play. Our effort would be to make outdoor play an important daily habit no matter what it takes; whether it is through sensitizing the key influencers to this burning issue or by restoring playgrounds where kids can play safely.”

Nickelodeon's 'Let's Just Play" activity will be held in Mumbai, Delhi (Ghaziabad), Chennai and Bangalore.