Irish children are spending over five hours a day online.

A new obesity and behaviour study by iKydz has shown YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are the most popular sites.

Children as young as five are spending an average of five and a half hours a day online - with you tube and social media sites accounting for 86 per cent of their usage.

It also found that parents were most concerned about the type of things their young children were accessing and then the amount of time older children and teenagers were spending online.

ikydz aims to deal with this by letting parents control how their children use internet via a mobile app.

The survey shows Irish children are spending nearly three times the recommend daily allowance of two hours per day online.

Naoise Kennedy from youth mental health service Reach out says it's extremely worrying as it means children find it difficult to switch off. 

She's advising parents to establishing boundaries, but also to be conscious of their own internet use and set an example.