text: Intermediate 
  They may not know who Steve Jobs was or even how to tie their own shoelaces, but the average six-year-old child understands more about digital technology than a 45-year-old adult, according to a new report.
  The arrival of broadband in the year 2000 has created a generation of digital natives, Ofcom (which checks standards in the UK communications industries) says in its annual study of British consumers. Born in the new millennium, these children are learning how to operate smartphones or tablets before they are able to talk.
  These younger people are shaping communications, said Jane Rumble, who is head of media research at Ofcom. As a result of growing up in the digital age, they are developing completely different communication habits from older generations, even compared to the 16-to-24 age group.
  800 children and 2,000 adults took Ofcoms digital quotient, or DQ, test, which attempts to gauge awareness of and self-con dence around gadgets from tablets to smart watches, knowledge of superfast internet, 4G mobile- phone networks and mobile apps.
  Among 6- to 7-year-olds, who have grown up with YouTube, Spotify music streaming and online television, the average DQ score was 98, higher than for those aged between 45 and 49, who scored an average of 96. Digital understanding peaks between 14 and 15 years old, with a DQ of 113, and then drops gradually throughout adulthood, before falling rapidly in old age.
  People can now test their digital knowledge with a short version of the questionnaire that will give anyone a DQ score, along with advice on how to improve their understanding and protect themselves and their families online.
  The ways in which millennial children contact each other and consume entertainment are so different from previous generations that forecasters now believe their preferences to be a better indication of the future than the preferences of trendsetting young adults.
  The most remarkable change is in time spent talking by phone. Two decades ago, teenagers spent their evenings monopolizing the home telephone line, talking about love affairs and friendships in conversations that lasted for hours.
  For those aged 12 to 15, phone calls account for just 3% of time spent communicating through any device. For all adults, this rises to 20% and, for young adults, it is still three times as high at 9%. Todays children do the majority of their remote socializing by sending written messages or through shared photographs and videos. The millennium generation is losing its voice, Ofcom claims.
  Over 90% of their device-time is message based, chatting on social networks like Facebook, sending instant messages through services like WhatsApp or even sending traditional mobile- phone text messages. Just 2% of childrens time using devices is spent emailing, compared to 33% for adults.
  Away from their phones, 12- to 15-year-olds have a very different relationship with other media, too. A digital seven-day diary shows live television accounts for just half of viewing for this age group, compared to nearly 70% for all adults. They spend 20% of their time viewing short video clips, for example on YouTube, or news clips on Facebook and other social sites. The rest of their viewing is shared between DVDs, streamed content through Net ix or iTunes and recorded television programmes.
  Young adults aged 16 to 24 are big media consumers. However, they consume hardly any live radio or print-based media.
  Younger people are also moving away from live television and moving to streaming and catch- up services. Even among adults, television is becoming less important. Television viewing among 16- to 24-year-olds has been dipping each year since 2010, but 2013 was the  rst year that researchers found that viewing fell in all age groups. The theory is that easy-to-use tablet computers with large screens have brought many older people online.