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Woburn, MA – February 4, 2021 – A new Kaspersky Safe Kids study has revealed kids’ top online interests this winter. In the face of COVID-related restrictions around the world, kids have managed to amuse themselves with YouTube content (21% of searches) and games (15%), with Minecraft being the most popular. Meanwhile, Donald Trump led the search count for famous people.

Children have had a very unusual winter this year. In order to explore how these children offset the lack of normal activities, Kaspersky analyzed the anonymized search queries requested by Kaspersky Safe Kids users from December 20 to January 10. The voluntarily provided, anonymized metadata covers requests made via Bing, Google, Mail.ru, Yahoo!, Yandex, and YouTube, both on mobile and desktop.

The most popular requests were associated with YouTube (21%), gaming (15%), language translators (11%), communication platforms (10%) and music (9%).

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On YouTube, children searched most frequently for video games (37%). They searched for channels of game streamers who play different games (39%) and for channels that cover specific ones like Minecraft (19%). The other most requested games on YouTube were Among Us, Brawl Stars and Gacha Life, which enables the creation of video stories.

The second most prominent search category (21%) on YouTube was related to specific bloggers or channels. The DIY-topic was quite popular among children, evidenced by the top three requests for channels: 5-Minute Crafts, 123 GO! and Troom Troom.

The third most popular YouTube search topic was music. The most popular musicians were K-pop bands BlackPink and BTS; singers Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish; and rapper Travis Scott. The most popular songs were “Baby Shark,” “Dance Monkey” and “Savage Love.”

Besides musicians and bloggers, children searched for other famous personalities. Donald Trump topped kids’ requests, ahead of other highly-searched celebrities, including actress Emma Watson and entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Another popular interest this winter was TikTok, which has 800 million monthly active users in over 150 countries. Popular searches included “TikTok mashup,” specific TikTokers and “how to change restricted modes on TikTok.” The most popular TikTok challenge was “try not to laugh,” which was also frequently searched in German: “versuche nicht zu lachen.”

“The popularity of DIY shows that children still love hand-made crafting, and the passion for Gacha Life can facilitate storytelling and cartoon creation skills,” Said Anna Larkina, web content analysis expert at Kaspersky. “TikTok inspires kids to shoot creative videos, while Korean pop stars appeal by teaching dance moves through their video clips. Today, children who do not even know a world without video games, YouTube and messaging apps show they know how to entertain themselves regardless of any pandemic. We, as adults, should learn from them.”

Kaspersky offers the following tips to help parents make the online experience positive and safe for their children:

  • Ensure your child’s security by making their account more private – TikTok has recently updated its parental control feature
  • Learn more about your children’s interests with Kaspersky Safe Kids, which can provide you with regular reports on what makes their day. The app analyzes your children’s online search activity and manages screen time without encroaching on their personal space

To learn more about Kaspersky’s recent findings on children’s interests, read more on Securelist.

Note to editors

The report is based on anonymized metadata, voluntarily provided by users of Kaspersky Safe Kids app from December 20, 2020 to January 10, 2021. This covers search requests made by children via Bing, Google, Mail.ru, Yahoo!, Yandex and YouTube, more than 1,000 times during this period. Popularity was calculated by the number of times each query was searched without dividing by region and language.

About Kaspersky

Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity company founded in 1997. Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is constantly transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe. The company’s comprehensive security portfolio includes leading endpoint protection and a number of specialized security solutions and services to fight sophisticated and evolving digital threats. Over 400 million users are protected by Kaspersky technologies and we help 250,000 corporate clients protect what matters most to them. Learn more at usa.kaspersky.com.

Media Contact

Sawyer Van Horn

sawyer.vanhorn@Kaspersky.com

(781) 503-1866

 

Top children searches: Minecraft, DIY and Donald Trump


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