Sex, porn, Jacko top kids' searches in 2009
Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson were among the most popular items kids searched for online in 2009, as tracked by Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton.
Symantec on Thursday revealed the top 100 favorite search terms among children 18 and under found by its free OnlineFamily.Norton service, which helps parents monitor their kids' online searches. Though innocuous terms like Sesame Street and "New Moon"--a popular movie in the Twilight vampire series--made the cut, sex showed up fourth on the list for boys and fifth for girls, following YouTube, Google, and Facebook as the three top terms.
For boys, the top 25 search terms focused on social-networking sites, shopping sites, and certain adult terms. Girls seemed to favor subjects related to music, TV shows and movies, and celebrities.
Speaking of celebrities, to no one's surprise, the late Michael Jackson was the most searched for celebrity, coming in at number 12, followed by pop singer Taylor Swift at No. 13. Other hot stars that made the list included Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Eminem, Rihanna, and Chris Brown (who was in the news this year after admitting that he assaulted ex-girlfriend Rihanna).
Searching for celebrities online, however, may be hazardous to your PC's health. Symantec has found found that these searches sometimes draw people to dangerous Web sites, which spew out viruses, spam, and other malware.
Kids seven and under searched for items related to video games, while older kids were heavy into music, with 34 percent of teens and 27 percent of tweens searching for music-related topics. The Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA" was the most-searched for tune among kids, while "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eye Peas took the No. 2 spot.
Tech terms that popped up on the list included MySpace at No. 8, MSN at No. 33, the iPod Touch at No. 98, and Bing last at No. 100.
To compile its top 100 list, Symantec tracked 14.6 million searches run by users of its OnlineFamily.Norton service and ranked the terms according to ones submitted most frequently to those submitted the least. The terms were collected anonymously, so none could be associated with any specific children or families.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
7 and under
Youtube
Google
FACEBOOK
PORN
Oh im sure....
You may choose not to believe it but I hope you don't have kids
'No sex for us please, we're Americans."
First of all don't be a bigot I love how all Europeans have this big I hate anything American attitude. Yes I categorized your whole continent. Same way that you categorize a whole country.
Second of all the reason why I said that was that its a little hard to believe that a 7 year old would be actively going online to satisfied their sexual needs.
You realize were talking about 7 year old's here in other words first graders. Same kids that still believe in Santa and watch Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon day in and day out.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! So true. But that's just a mask we wear in the public eye. Porn is a multi billion dollar a year market.
Seriously, looking for sex in google brings the most boring and useless sites, while porn brings quality free porn sites, its a shame Americans, you definitively failed as a parent.
when you type porn it goes strictly to porn sites while sex offers a great deal of definitions instead.
lol this is so funy, although i will doubt 7 year olds do that, unless thats the only word they know how to type, and you have to wonder why................
Just a marketing ploy.
Still, if look how in the first chart girls don't actually look for -porn-, just sex; while boys do. We surely are way more twisted.
/endrant
Shame on all of us for allowing this.
You should move to China
Parental Control and Internet Filters <--- Try googling that
For 7-, it does seem a bit earlier than I'd expect, (maybe 9-10). II think the most likely explanation here is that mom set up the watch, and dad didn't know to sign out of it, so it got logged as for the kid.
Nevertheless, kids have been looking at porn and nude images way before the internet came about - even the lingerie ads are big boons for a teenage boy. This is natural curiosity. At the risk of making a generalist statement, porn, however, can be very destructive for any mind in terms of the perception it perpetuates and the crimes against those in it that supporting the industry creates. I'm not suggesting all porn is destructive or creating crime (indeed porn can be constructive) - I don't want to labour the point so I'll leave it there. You get the idea.
This is not censorship but parental responsibility. If an adult wants to access pornography that is their choice but a child is not equiped with the emotional maturity to deal with these images.
If your child was being sold drugs and alcohol online we would want to stop it. Why is this any different.
And I were a 7-year-old, I certainly wouldn't bookmark my favourite porn site :lol: (7 seems just a bit younger than I would have expected...)
In a poll of ten year olds ninety percent of them had seen porn.
This is too young and we will all as a society suffer the consequences. STD"s and a break down of the family will cause huge societal problems.
Lets put our computers away and raise our children properly.
Computers, game consoles and TVs are not supposed to be nannies, but they are. I've seen middle class educated parents who are successful on their own let their kids grow up to be trashy loosers. Granted parents working two jobs making minimum wage do raise kids to go to college and become successful as well, but overall trend is bad.
As a nation we got too fat, lazy and stupid. How would you expect people raise a kid when they don't want to own up the responsibility?
What a way to put it; who exactly is subjecting them to porn? Is Google holding them down and forcing it to watch it, or is it simply their own helplessness?
There's not some invisible porn monster running around "subjecting" these kids to porn. Obviously you didn't think there was but the fact that you would put it that way underscores the fact that you just want it to be anyone else's fault but your own.
I would suggest these 'statistics' are deeply flawed, and more scare-mongering tactics by securrity serice providers.
Any idiot knows, if you want to monitor your kids behaviour online, don't leave a computer in their bedroom - have it out in the common area of the house, otherwise you're asking for trouble. Save yourself the money, and get pro-active instead.
Kids are curious and better able to handle sexual information then you think. Try to steer them towards non-violent porn. Kids are looking for information about sex. They want unbiased truth that parents fail to give them. Some parents give them only a little information about sex while most kids prefer to learn at their own speed. Might be a good idea to teach your kids what you feel are normal and abnormal sex practices so at least they will have a base line of normal to judge erotic images from. What America needs are PG porn sites so parents can discuss what the kids are seeing with them. That way you can explain to them what they are seeing and how you feel about it. Just treating kids like mushrooms has never worked. Whatever happened to the "Joy of Sex" book. That was pretty tame. Maybe kids would not be so curious if they all had one. Also some information about condoms never hurt anyone. You know its funny, parents always seem to freak out about things like sex and porn. The kids never do, at least not until they see their parents freaking out. Above all, remain calm, don't panic in front of the kids.
Of course everyone can get curious, but really, it seems today's culture is prompting that curiosity to show up younger and younger. Everywhere you look, sex is show as something wholly for recreation and making yourself feel good, and nothing else.
And uh, you had a lot of questions about sex when you were seven? When you were in first/second grade? Why would you even need to know about sex at that age? Sure we hear about it at that age, but what good does learning more do? Honestly I can say I WASN'T curious at that age or even remotely interested until a whole lot later. Knowing the definition of sex is fine, but being shown porn to "learn more" I find completely unnecessary.
I can easily see how a whole lot of those searches really weren't by 7&unders, but parents on their kids' accounts won't alone put a term in 4th place.
And people are defending them saying who cares, it's just porn, I think we should be seeing it EARLIER! This is pretty disturbing. And the author of this article didn't even say anything about it! Well at least we know we should be careful when searching for celebrities, because there are risks for viruses, but it doesn't really matter that 7 year olds are looking for porn.
Maybe instead of trying to go to all these lengths to keep children from coming across these things on their own by relying on filters and parental controls parents should just spend a little more time WITH their children. Talk to your children, they're a whole lot smarter and understand a whole lot more than you think they do. Everyone should have to watch the first episode of South Park season 8, 'Good Times with Weapons'. If you do not understand the message, please do not have children.
I know it's impossible to monitor children 24/7 but if you spend some time with them they will learn right from wrong by watching you. It's right along the lines of three and four year-olds repeating every word you say. You can hate me for saying this but this is just one thing life has taught me. You can blame video games and porn all you want but if your child becomes a serial killer I'm guessing there were a few more issues in his/her life than some animated violence and gratuitous sex.
I'm finding the comments very interesting. I do want to clarify that the OnlineFamily.Norton service is free. When the parents set it up, they enter the child's date of birth which allows us to offer recommended settings of categories of sites to block. That date of birth entry is what allows the search data to be tied to age groups.
Some have suggested the "porn" term was used by parents to test the service. That's an interesting theory; I've passed it along to the product team for review. Nevertheless, it seems plausible that even very young children hear terms from older siblings and friends, at school and so on and will turn to the Internet for more information. So it may well be with "porn."
The reason why sites like Google, YouTube and Facebook show up as search terms is a reflection on how children use the Internet. Many of the commenters recognized this curiosity. For some people (children and adult) it's easier to type the desired site name into the search window on your browser's toolbar, even if typing the actual address would be the same or fewer clicks.
The OnlineFamily.Norton service is free and pretty easy to use. I find it fascinating that this data came from accounts that were being openly monitored. There is no stealth mode for OnlineFamily.Norton. So children knew their Internet activity could be reviewed by their parents and still looked for "sex", "porn" and "boobs". That goes to show (no surprise) how strong their curiosity is about the topic of sex. All the more reason for parental discussion and guidance to occur, even with very young children.
Marian Merritt
Norton Internet Safety Advocate
I'm a So. Cal native. When one has reached the point that they consider themselves, their morals, or whatever, so righteous as to assume that no disagreement could ever exist within the 'orb of purity' in which they reside, the rest of us must assume that said person is beyond the reach of objective reason. I advise some deep reflection on the possibility that you are 'blinded by the light', so to speak...
Yes, I am thoroughly familiar with what a 7 year old is. Coincidentally, I myself WAS a 7 year old at one time. I also seem to recall recently living under the same roof with not one, but two such creatures. Dare I say that it was a safe and enjoyable experience for all, despite the fact that they were not regarded as little beings of pure innocence, but rather little beings of human-ness?
I don't know whose bright idea it was to deny people access to their world until age 18, then force them out of the cage of dependency they've become...DEPENDENT upon, and dump the responsibility that was never their caregivers right to hold prisoner in the first place, into their lap and expect them to figure out the answers to those questions that we were too embarrassed, ashamed, or guilty to answer.
Thirty years ago the saints of parenthood had to make do with only music and television as their scapegoats. Now it's the Internet, video games, and let's not forget the current Crème de la Crème...straight out of a Little Red Riding Hood storybook, the evil, subhuman, Child Predator (aka: wako jacko). Reality just wasn't good enough anymore...Thirty years ago we played all day long without incident in the same streets that are now infested with ethereal pedophiles who are singularly obsessed with the urge to defile every last child on the planet. If such creatures do exist, their sudden appearance en-masse can only mean it's become necessary for them to take drastic measures to corrupt children before their parents do.
No, Monkeyfun...I'm not going to play your game. Go on and have your fun re-enacting the Salem Witch Trials...but know...all of you... that it is a picket fence, not an ocean, that separates us...
And we are far from amused.
so they look it up...
so they look it up...
- by jaroslaw_k December 28, 2009 9:30 AM PST
- If the results showing that '7 years old and under' search frequently for 'porn' are correct, there is indeed the reason to worry: children at this age should not do it if they live in household with proper care. The saving grace is that 'sex' was not high-ranked search term at the same time. That's why I think it may be the result of curiosity triggered by overhearing careless conversations of adults: let's be honest - we do try to avoid mentioning sex in the presence of minors, but the word 'porn' can slip through much easier. If the answer to follow up question by the child is 'you will learn when you grow up', we've got perfect candidate to do quick web search.
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- by QA_Tester December 28, 2009 10:27 AM PST
- Statistics does not lie, but statisticians do. Who knows if the numbers have not been compiled to show what the editor wanted to show? More importantly how do they know who is actually performing the search?
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (58 Comments)Another side remark: search term 'porn' fits psychological profile of teenage boy. Previous posters who suggest that high rank of the term is due to mistakenly counting dad's searches are wrong: people in their late twenties or older should be more specific if their sexual development is in sync with their age. I think that older siblings doing the search while logged into younger brother's account are more probable source of any inaccuracies.
They don't. thus the entire tracking system is guestimate at best.