Family Learning Center

Why is porn one of the top web searches by kids?

Sex and porn were the No. 4 and 5 search terms for kids, according to a recent survey by Symantec’s Norton OnlineFamily division.

This reminds me of a story. I was writing a story in my home office about a porn company that was buying a stake in another company. (It wound up not being published). Then my nine-year old came into my office and asked, “Daddy, what’s porn?”

Not knowing what to say, I just barked, “Get out of my office!” She didn’t ask it again. But then I started thinking. “What happens if she goes to her mother now and asks, ‘What is porn?’”

My wife would ask, “Where did you hear that?”

And my kid would say, “I saw it on Daddy’s computer.” Or, if my wife punted the question, I could see my kid asking the teacher at school, and the teacher wondering why my kid saw porn on her Daddy’s computer. I headed those conversations off by going directly to my wife and telling her the story. So I can understand why kids would search about these words that are so pervasive in our society. They’re curious to know what they mean, and of course it should be up to parents, and not search engines, to tell the kids what they mean, in the proper context and time. I’m trying to think if “Never mind” would work if my kid ever asks again.

Some of those results were amusing. The No. 4 search term for boys was “sex” while for girls it was “Taylor Swift.” But sex was No. 5 for girls. Michael Jackson was the top celebrity search, coming in at No. 12 overall, and Taylor Swift came in at 13. While searching for celebrity names seems safe, Norton has noted that cybercriminals love to take advantage of well-known names to embed malware in deceptive web pages.

Symantec said it did the survey through its site OnlineFamily.Norton to help foster conversations among families. Thankfully, in 2009, sex and porn were not at the very top of the list. At the top were YouTube, Google, and Facebook. Norton notes that while these sites can be entertaining and educational, parents shold talk with kids to talk about what’s appropriate when viewing videos online, searching for info, and interacting on social networks.

The Facebook search is also at the top of my mind. My 13-year-old asked for a Facebook page, and my immediate answer was no and that they weren’t old enough. But I checked Facebook’s rules, and now the social network is open to 13-year-olds. So we’re overdue to have the conversation about Internet safety and predators and all of that other stuff it’s worth warning a kid about before they join Facebook.

The survey was conducted between Feb. 2 and Dec 4. this year, tracking a total of 14.6 million searches on OnlineFamily.Norton, which tracks the Internet activities of children.

[photo credit: Flickr, Dalbera]

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