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Teens Ask Yahoo! “Who Is Osama Bin Laden?”

Yesterday’s news that the most notorious man of the 21st century had been killed struck a chord with millions of Americans. The younger folks seem to have been left out in the cold, though, as Yahoo! reported in a recent blog post.

According to their search statistics, searches for “Osama Bin Laden” went up 100,000% making him the most searched person on Monday. One quarter of those searches came from those under the age of 24. Younger users, ages 13-17, were responsible for 1 in 3 of the searches for “how did Osama Bin Laden die,” and 40% of searches for “who killed Osama Bin Laden.” Most surprising, however, was Yahoo!’s report that 66% of the people searching for the phrase “who is Osama Bin Laden?” were also in the 13-17. For reference, these pubescent users would have been born in 1994-1998, meaning that the oldest amongst them were in first grade during the 9/11 attacks.

While it’s possible that they were simply too young to remember the attacks, and have — as teenagers are wont to do — ignored many of the news issues of the day, search traffic alone doesn’t imply ignorance. They could have just as easily used the search term to learn more about the deceased leader of Al Qaeda. But, if you need to make a friend feel old and despair about the future, just share the above factoids with them.

(Yahoo! Search Blog via Boing Boing)

  • Hop_froggy06

    Just wanted to point out that the oldest of that age group were actually born in 1993 and were in 2nd grade during the attacks. My sister, for example, was born in December 1993. She was in 2nd grade then and is not quite 18 now.

  • Asreal

    There was a great oxymoron on the bbc site this morning too:

    LIVE: Osama Bin Laden dead!

    lol ^_^

  • Hardhead

    I’m going to need to see some control statistics. What percentage of non-Osama Bin Laden related searches did 13-17 year old constitute? Or Bin Laden-related posts on the days leading up to his death. Not that I doubt the implications here, just the scientist in me can’t just accept this without controls.

  • GUEST

    I live in Finland and was born in 1993……9/11 had nothing to do with me and I still know who Osama is, but some people from USA don’t know who he is?…how is this possible


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