Top Google searches — The questions we ask tell us about ourselves
We can learn a lot about ourselves as members of society by the information that we seek. Using data provided from Google, we can parse through the numerous queries and find the most popular questions posed by users. Estately, a real estate website, did just this last October in a blog post, “How-To Questions Each State Googles More Frequently Than Any Other State,” in which they identified the top questions asked for each state in America.
The information is both revealing (“How to get a passport?” for North Dakota) and funny (“How to be awesome?” for North Carolina). Oddly, “How to survive an earthquake?” was the top query for Washington, yet “How to spot a narcissist?” was more prevalent in California. (Okay, maybe that makes sense…) Those residing in Oklahoma got lessons in sexting, while New Mexicans learned “how to ask a girl out.” Utah was busy with catching Pokémon, while Texans learned to save their own souls.
Those curious about other curious minds can visit Google Trends to see top searches for themselves organized by geographic region and timeframe. For example, the top search results on Google for 2016 are worth a look.
Top queries for 2016 (global): Pokémon Go, iPhone 7, Donald Trump, Prince, Powerball
Top queries for 2016 (U.S.): Powerball, Prince, Hurricane Matthew, Pokémon Go, Slither.io
Compare this to the top Google searches of 2015:
Top queries for 2015 (global): Lamar Odom, Charlie Hebdo, Agar.io, Jurassic World, Paris
Top queries for 2015 (U.S.): Lamar Odom, Jurassic World, American Sniper, Caitlyn Jenner, Ronda Rousey
The results are interesting but not surprising. While global news and politics are featured slightly in the results, most people searched about games, entertainment and celebrities. In 2015, “Paris” was the sixth most searched item in the United States, but “Charlie Hebdo” was nowhere to be found in the top 10.
Also, that Lamar Odom is damn popular.
Taking a look at the top global Google searches for 2001, the earliest year available on Google Trends, we can see some similarities, such as the fact that Pokémon was trending then too. (Note that while there have been supposedly over one trillion Google searches per year since 2012, the total for 2001 is much smaller at 27.5 billion searches. Competing search engines also had a larger chunk of the market then, with perhaps more consumer-oriented “non-techies” still preferring Yahoo! over Google.)
What do you think about all this data? What query was number one in your home state? Let me know in the comments, and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more earthly observations.
