The death of Osama Bin laden on Sunday has resulted in a renewal of interest in him. However, according to the Yahoo! Search Blog, teenagers seem to be quite unaware of who he is.
Yahoo! search trends reported that there was a spike of 100,000% on the topic of Osama Bin Laden, making him the most searched person of the day. Notably, about 20% of the searches were conducted by teenagers and a total of 25% of searches were by those below 24 years of age.
The commonly asked questions were about confirmation of his death as well as how he died and who killed him. Additionally, people also asked about his age, height, wife, children and his biography. People were also curious to know whether his name was spelled ‘Osama’ or ‘Usama’.
1 in 3 searches asking “how did Osama Bin Laden die” were from users aged between 13 – 17 years while 40% of searches asking “who killed Osama” were queried by users between 13 and 20 years of age.
This interest by youngsters is quite understandable, as most of them may have been too young to remember the events of 9/11 that took place almost 10 years ago. Even those who do remember would have lost track, unless they had been personally affected by it.
Twin Towers dominated the New York skyline before the Al Qaeda attack
Other common searches on the day were about Pakistan – maps, news, Islamabad, Abbottabad and the house in which Osama Bin Laden lived. People also carried out searches about the events of 9/11, Ground Zero, the Twin Towers and World Trade Centre in New York, all of which were iconic of the act of terrorism initiated by Bin Laden.
Google also reported a 1 million percent rise in searches for Osama BinLaden between 7.30 and 8.30 p.m. Pacific Time on Sunday.
