Compiling lists of search terms has become a favorite year-end ritual, with the tallies of our Internet curiosities reminding us of the year’s highs and lows, which celebrities commanded our attention, and the loudest pulses of the news cycle.
Symantec’s OnlineFamily.Norton division has put together a different kind of search index.
Looking just at the terms kids plugged into search engines, Norton found that queries for “sex” and “porn” checked in at Nos. 4 and 5, respectively.
Topping the list was “YouTube,” followed by “Google” and “Facebook.”
OnlineFamily.Norton is a free service Symantec offers to parents to help keep track of their kids’ Internet activity.
The most recent analysis looked at the search habits of kids under the age of 18 throughout 2009, the parsing them by age range and gender. The top three queries (YouTube, Google, Facebook) were identical for boys and girls. No. 4 on the boys’ list was “sex,” and “Taylor Swift” for the girls. Boys’ fifth-most popular search term was “porn,” while “sex” rounded out the girls’ top five.
Overall, Norton found that 12 percent of boys searched for adult content, compared to just 2 percent of girls.
The highest-ranking celebrity on the boys’ list was Michael Jackson, who checked in at No. 13, the same spot he held on the girls’ list.
Michael Jackson took the top spot on the lists of top search queries released earlier this month by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
Among both boys and girls, the search terms are a mix of popular social networks, shopping sites, celebrities and entertainment hubs, and a smattering of inappropriate terms.
Norton also listed separately various forms of the same search topic. “YouTube,” for example, was the top search term on the aggregate list, while “YouTube.com” checked in at No. 6, and “You Tube” was No. 10.
“Bing” was No. 100 on that list.
