Kids are searching for sex online, get over it

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:

1. YouTube
2. Google
3. Facebook
4. Sex
5. Porn
6. YouTube.com
7. Yahoo
8. MySpace
9. eBay
10. You Tube
11. Wikipedia
12. Michael Jackson
13. Taylor Swift
14. Gmail
15. Party in the USA
16. Miley Cyrus
17. Club Penguin
18. Miniclip
19. Fred
20. Games
21. Facebook login
22. Google.com
23. Hotmail
24. Lady Gaga
25. Amazon
26. Yahoo Mail
27. Justin Bieber
28. Addicting games
29. Facebook.com
30. Webkinz
31. Yahoo.com
32. Boobs
33. MSN
34. Hannah Montana
35. Dictionary
36. Walmart
37. Selena Gomez
38. Dictionary.com
39. MySpace.com
40. New Moon
41. Runescape
42. Lil Wayne
43. Google Maps
44. Down
45. Google Earth
46. Norton Safety Minder
47. Mapquest
48. Boom Boom Pow
49. Craigslist
50. Twilight
51. Megan Fox
52. Sesame Street
53. Poptropica
54. Target
55. Eminem
56. Music
57. Fireflies
58. Disney Channel
59. You Belong With Me
60. Utube
61. Weather
62. iTunes
63. Beyonce
64. Pokemon
65. Britney Spears
66. Twitter
67. Hotmail.com
68. Demi Lovato
69. Funny
70. Black Eyed Peas
71. One time
72. Cartoon Network
73. Jonas Brothers
74. Halo
75. www.youtube.com
76. Watcha Say
77. Family Guy
78. Taylor Swift You Belong With Me
79. Best Buy
80. Taylor Lautner
81. Rihanna
82. Pussy
83. Gmail.com
84. Lego
85. Gummy Bear Song
86. Thriller
87. You’re a jerk
88. Nigahiga
89. Girls
90. Free online games
91. New Moon trailer
92. Translator
93. Disney
94. Ask.com
95. Paparazzi Lady Gaga
96. Poker Face
97. Chris Brown
98. iPod Touch
99. Photobucket
100. Bing