Earlier this month, Symantec published a list of the top 100 kids’ online search words for 2009 (ages 18 & under). The data comes from a free search monitoring service for parents called OnlineFamily.Norton.
As expected with a sample group including teenagers, some of the online search words are anything but innocent. However, what is shocking is that “porn” is the 4th most popular search word among kids ages 7 and younger.
Amusingly, “Norton Safety Minder” is the 46th most searched for phrase among kids 18 and under. Search results include instructions on how to temporarily disable OnlineFamily.Norton.
BAD SEARCHES FROM THE TOP 100
by boys and girls (ages 18 & under)
#4 - Sex (#4 for boys & #5 for girls)
#5 - Porn (#5 for boys & #24 for girls)
#32 - Boobs (#17 for boys)
#82 - Pussy
TOP 25 SEARCHES
segmented by age groups
You can learn a lot about someone by what they search for online. These top search results paint a pretty clear psychographic picture of the priorities, preferences, and habits of online youth.
Kids and teens are obviously learning and experimenting with adult content much sooner than many parents, kids’ ministries, and youth ministries realize. As Time magazine reported early this month, 40% of adolescents have intercourse before ever talking to their parents about safe sex, birth control, or sexually transmitted diseases. Parents often dread giving their kids the sex talk(s), but studies show that kids want to learn from their parents. Instead, many kids learn about sex through friends, the Internet, and experimentation.
Parents sometimes say things more vaguely because they are uncomfortable and they think they’ve addressed something, but the kids don’t hear the topic at all.
- Dr. Karen Soren :: New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital
From a children’s ministry perspective, it is important to realize that statistically quite a few 7-year-olds in your class are searching for porn and exposing themselves to things much more serious than what traditional lessons cover. Obviously, children’s ministries cannot be straightforward about sex, but being too vague doesn’t work either.
Perhaps there are subtle ways to layer lessons with mature spiritual principles. Ideally, children’s ministry lessons should clearly yet subtly word things in a way that trains, helps, and ministers to the kids who are hurting and/or have picked up bad habits while simultaneously “going over the heads” and still teaching the kids who still have their innocence. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.
For Discussion:
- What do you think about these online trends?
- How can churches help?
I’ve got to say that the 7 and under stat was pretty disturbing. What got me even more disturbed was thinking about the fact that these are kids who have parents that are “at least” proactive enough to put an internet filter on their computer for the kids. I imagine that there are lots of parents who don’t even care enough to do that. I wonder what the search results from that group would look like. Perhaps worse than what we see above?
WARNING!
What you are about to read may be the most Radical approach to Evangelism in Public Schools you have ever heard of.
IS IT LEGAL? No – not for adults. But it is completely legal for students! It is a God-given loophole!
Working through local churches and their Christian students, we saturate high schools with God’s Word. Through strategic counter-insurgency, Christian students give friends and classmates a copy of The Life Book at school to introduce them to Jesus Christ. Nothing like this has ever been done before!
Thanks for the boldness and relevancy of this post. It seems as church leaders and parents our role has moved from preventing-to-managing this problem. Let’s not be nieve, none of us are immune to the “moral slide” that is occurring in our culture. A few years back, we would not have tolerated the Facebook or Youtube ads that pop up in the side-bar, but because the Internet has become such a force in our lives, we do. All of this has created subtle movement in our own hearts which, I believe, has created more opportunities for our kids to be exposed to things that we don’t even notice or think about (on TV, movies we watch, Internet, etc) which… contributes to their shift in thinking and search words. SO… the question becomes how do we “manage” this crazy culture in which we live? I don’t know, but I do know it’s going to take a much more direct, creative, and bold approach.
[...] Read the article: Top 100 Kids’ Online Search Words for 2009 [...]
[...] are the implications for youth and children’s ministry in your church? Kent Shaffer at ChurchRelevance.com offers this: From a children’s ministry perspective, it is important to realize that statistically quite a few [...]
[...] Top 100 Kids’ Online Search Words for 2009 | churchrelevance.com (tags: search children parenting symantec) [...]
[...] Top 100 Kids’ Online Search Words for 2009 [...]
[...] Kent Shaffer at ChurchRelevance.com analyzes the Top 100 search criteria used by kids — including kids under age seven — on the internet. Then again, you may not want to know. Otherwise, continue here. [...]
[...] Top 100 Kids Online Search Word for 2009 [...]
Have you guys seen the movie To Save a Life trailer? It looks pretty incredible - going to be a great film on the impact of youth ministry in teenagers’ lives. http://tosavealifemovie.com/ Their website also provides a lot of ways to get our kids involved in the fun stuff like contests and grabbing cool gear, and serious stuff like teen suicide prevention. So great!
[...] Kent Shaffer at ChurchRelevance.com analyzes the Top 100 search criteria used by kids — including kids under age seven — on the internet. Then again, you may not want to know. Otherwise, continue here. [...]