They walk 3.6 km a day: They spend more than 20 percent of their time on the road

Location tracking application Findmykids has measured how much distance children in the world and in Turkey travel outside their homes on average every day. According to the research, which anonymously evaluated the 12-hour data of Findmykids' 5.8 million active users worldwide and nearly 250 thousand in Turkey between 07:00 and 19:00 last October, children spend a significant portion of their day on the road while commuting between home and school.

According to Findmykids data, children around the world travel an average of 12.3 kilometers every day. They cover 2.8 kilometers of this on foot and 9.5 kilometers by vehicle. According to the research, the children who walk the most per day in the world are in Azerbaijan. The Findmykids research reveals that children in Azerbaijan walk an average of 4.8 kilometers per day, those in Kyrgyzstan 4.3 kilometers, those in India 3.8 kilometers, and children in Turkey walk an average of 3.6 kilometers per day. The average for Germany and Russia is 2.6 kilometers, the average for England is 2.2 kilometers, and the average for the USA, the country where children walk the least, is 1.6 kilometers, which is less than half of Turkey's.

Findmykids Country Manager Neşen Yücel said, "In our research covering 170 countries, we measured the movements of children in the world and in Turkey during their most active hours, between 07:00 in the morning and 19:00 in the evening. We included every day of last October in our research. Of course, children can be more active on some days, but according to the world average, they spend 5 percent of this time frame walking and 12 percent traveling by vehicle. In other words, they spend a total of 17 percent of their most active hours on the road, and this rate corresponds to approximately two hours in total. For those wondering about the length of the school commute, let us immediately state that the world average distance between home and school is 5.8 kilometers, and the average time spent going from home to school or from school to home is 24 minutes."

Stating that the average distance between children's homes and schools in Turkey is around 6 kilometers, Neşen Yücel said, "Of course, as in our country, some children in all other countries travel much more, while others travel less between home and school. The world ranking in this regard is remarkable. Saudi Arabia ranks first in the world with an average of 14.4 kilometers. Thailand, Malaysia, and South Africa follow this country with averages around 12 kilometers. While the USA's average is 10 kilometers, Belgium, Canada, and France are on the list with averages around 8 kilometers."

Neşen Yücel also touched upon various details regarding the daily movement patterns of children in Turkey: "Children in Turkey are among those who walk the most in the world. To make a comparison, while children in our country spend 6.5 percent of their active hours walking, this rate is 5.5 percent in Russia, 5.1 percent in Germany, 5 percent in England, and only 3.7 percent in the USA. Looking at it from the same perspective, since children in our country spend 13.8 percent of their day traveling in a vehicle, we can say that 20.3 percent of their active hours are spent on the road. This is a significant amount of time. At this point, it would be appropriate for parents to encourage their children to make the best use of the time spent on the road, for example, by reading books instead of playing games or watching videos on the shuttle. Parents can easily examine which applications their children use on their mobile phones and for how long through the Findmykids application and provide the necessary guidance."

News Source: 12punto