Armenian Children's Searches Online: Communication Captivates Them

The representative of Kaspersky in Armenia reports that during the last summer holidays, Armenian children were mainly interested in communication (51.96%), software, music on social networks, as well as YouTube videos, new series, and movies.

They also spent considerable time exploring the offerings of online stores (9.22%). Perhaps, the only relatively widespread activity among Armenian children that could become a concern for their parents was visiting web platforms related to the theme of 'Weapons' (7.84%). Meanwhile, children's interest in other inappropriate subjects such as erotica, pornography, alcohol and drugs, violence, and gambling was significantly lower.

By analyzing anonymous search queries from children around the world, Kaspersky's experts concluded that this summer, children were most often searching for movies and series, which accounted for 22% of all inquiries in search engines. The film that captivated their interest the most was about Spider-Man. Their attention also shifted towards Disney's Aladdin adaptation and the third installment of the John Wick action film.

Regarding series, in Armenia as well as globally, young users most frequently searched for the new season of Netflix's 'Stranger Things.' Notably, they were interested not only in the series itself but also in information about the young actors, many of whom are their peers. The HBO series 'Chernobyl' secured a second place in popularity among children.

Interestingly, following the success of this series, children began to take an interest in radiation and related topics; search queries included terms like 'radioactive,' 'radon,' and other similar words that previously did not appear even in the top ten thousand of most common searches.

It seems that during summer, children have more time to visit online stores. According to global statistics from Kaspersky, the 'E-commerce' category represented an average of 9% of search queries throughout the year, whereas in the summer, this figure surged to nearly 13%. The most frequent queries related to shopping were Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress.

In terms of clothing and footwear brands, children showed the most interest in Vans, Gucci, Zara, H&M, Off-White, and Balenciaga. In the tech category, Apple's and Samsung's products were of significant interest to them.

One of the interesting trends this year has been children's growing attention to the topic of online privacy and anonymity. Among their most common search queries were terms like Proxy and Tor. Experts note that young users' interest in this topic is generally on the rise, albeit quite slowly.

'Children are well-informed about what is happening in the world. Many online incidents that made noise this summer have not escaped their attention. For instance, a significant majority of the 100 million users of the Roblox game are children. Moreover, during the dawn of the TikTok social network, its primary users were school children, later joined by adults,' shares Anna Larkin, a content analysis expert at Kaspersky.