The media seems to have been a-buzz this week following the release of the top search terms from 14.6 million searches picked up by parental control service OnlineFamily.Norton - mainly because it 'revealed' that kids are searching for sex online.
I am a parent myself, of young kids, and while of course I was shocked to discover that 7 year olds were looking for porn (and that search term was in position number 4 in the 7 and under age group according to Symantec which operates the service) I certainly would not get my knickers in a twist over finding 13 year olds searching for sex online (also number 4 in the teens group popular search list).
It's interesting to note that both boys and girls were searching for sex, although the boys had sex and porn in positions 4 and 5 respectively whereas the girls moved Taylor Swift up into the 4 slot and sex was at 5.
But is it really such a big deal that 13-18 years olds include sex and porn in their top search terms? No, of course not, kids have always been interested in sex as they go through puberty and the only difference these days to when I was that age is that the Internet makes it a lot easier to go look at naughty pictures.
I had to pay a few pennies to sneak a look at the Playboy magazine an older boy had sneaked into school. What is a bigger deal is that sex isn't a more popular search in the age group. Above sex are YouTube, Facebook and Google, with MySpace nestled between sex and porn.
Pretty much the same is true in the 8 to 12 year old group where sex sits at number 4, surrounded by YouTube, Google, Facebook, Club Penguin, Yahoo and eBay.
I do agree that finding porn sitting alongside Games, Club Penguin and YouTube is rather disconcerting in the 7 and under age group though and would suggest that this does not suggest kids are growing up earlier just that peer pressure and celebrity/media coverage of sex has meant that kids are more likely to get exposed to the word 'porn' at a much younger age.
And that says less about the Internet and more about the parenting, in my humble opinion. It also makes for a rather good argument that perhaps parental control software is becoming an essential item rather than an optional extra these days?
The full list , across all age groups, for the kids' top 100 searches of 2009 is:
YouTube
Google
Facebook
Sex
Porn
YouTube.com
Yahoo
MySpace
eBay
You Tube
Wikipedia
Michael Jackson
Taylor Swift
Gmail
Party in the USA
Miley Cyrus
Club Penguin
Miniclip
Fred
Games
Facebook login
Google.com
Hotmail
Lady Gaga
Amazon
Yahoo Mail
Justin Bieber
Addicting games
Facebook.com
Webkinz
Yahoo.com
Boobs
MSN
Hannah Montana
Dictionary
Walmart
Selena Gomez
Dictionary.com
MySpace.com
New Moon
Runescape
Lil Wayne
Google Maps
Down
Google Earth
Norton Safety Minder
Mapquest
Boom Boom Pow
Craigslist
Twilight
Megan Fox
Sesame Street
Poptropica
Target
Eminem
Music
Fireflies
Disney Channel
You Belong With Me
Utube
Weather
iTunes
Beyonce
Pokemon
Britney Spears
Twitter
Hotmail.com
Demi Lovato
Funny
Black Eyed Peas
One time
Cartoon Network
Jonas Brothers
Halo
www.youtube.com
Watcha Say
Family Guy
Taylor Swift You Belong With Me
Best Buy
Taylor Lautner
Rihanna
Pussy
Gmail.com
Lego
Gummy Bear Song
Thriller
You’re a jerk
Nigahiga
Girls
Free online games
New Moon trailer
Translator
Disney
Ask.com
Paparazzi Lady Gaga
Poker Face
Chris Brown
iPod Touch
Photobucket
Bing
