OffTheHoox.com

It will be agreed that on my Sunday Sesh I end up spending WAY too much time on the internet. In my defence however, it is a great source of information, news, entertainment and communication.

So I was sat there yesterday wondering what the rest of the world was up to on the net at the same time. I did a bit of homework. I wish I hadn’t because I just get wound up too easily.

Courtesy of Lycos 50 which is a very interesting site. You should check it out.

What I think gets to me quite a bit is if you take a look at the below list of the top 50 most searched words or phrases on the internet, considering the demographic using the internet for searches, the quality of information being searched for is appalling.

I would take a stab (purely my opinion and generalization) at the fact the highest usage of the net comes from the young to middle age, up and coming or stable, male and female from every corner of the globe (which in itself is an odd statement since it’s a sphere) and economically within the top percentage of the world that has access to a computer and internet. Or business. In a nutshell, it’s either the future leaders of our countries (the new generation), or the generation that is currently in the position to be able to do something positive for this planet and everything that “survives” off it. And what do “we” search for the most? Poker? Stars such as Angelina Jolie, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez or Jennifer Aniston? American Idol??

Are these the most important issues these days? If so, we can all be very happy. But hang on a second. What about the wars? What about Iraq and Afghanistan? What about the US elections to see who next will “control this world” as the super power? What about carbon footprints, global warming and polar icecaps?? What about the Ozone? What about deforestation? What about crime and poverty? What about continents being raped and pillaged by corrupt leaders? No? Well. I guess that not half as important as seeing pictures of Britney Spears naked, showing her bits to the world or getting her head shaved. The death of 1 Anna Nicole Smith is more important than the death of 10, 000s per day from diseases, malnutrition, murders, bombings or other seemingly trivial reasons.

Paris Hilton at 375 weeks beaten only by Pamela Anderson at 384. Nice work Paris! Congratulations. So tell us what you have done for this world other than act like a drunk idiot and humiliating yourself and your family that have actually had to work to get to where they are today. You have a secret sex tape scandal and you make it big in this world. Where does Pamela Anderson and her sex tape scandal even feature anymore? I guess I should “Google” her and found out.

In the whole of the Top 50, which I understand is just a computer generated stat and shouldn’t be taken as gospel, the only reasonably positive search tag is Wikipedia and even then I feel I’m being lenient on my judging what is positive. At least Wikipedia is a very good source of information but sadly only staggers in at a lowly 47th place up from 193. I guess it’s moving in the right direction though. However it’s probably only being used to found out some vital stats of some superhero fashion statement like Posh or David Beckham or WWE!

Right I will get off my hobby horse now and let you take a quick look at the list as it stand now: Happy internet searching!

“Here are the top 50 searches on Lycos for the week ending March 17, 2007:”