What Do Our Google Searches Say About Us?

The Starlit Path

11 years ago

Every year, trillions of searches are done through Google by people all over the world. Which things are searched the most? As a blogger, you tend to research this sort of thing. At the moment, for example, Jodi Arias is the second most searched-for thing on Google.

Who Is She?

Arias was found guilty in May 2013 of murdering her on-off boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in 2008. She was basically a stalker girlfriend who couldn’t let go of her ex. (Apologies to her “fans” who video conferenced her in prison the other day). She stabbed him 27 times, almost decapitated him, then shot him in the head. Yesterday a judge sentenced her to a natural life sentence with no possibility of parole. If you’re interested in this story, read more on ABC’s website here. If you have Netflix, I HIGHLY recommend the film on her story “Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret”.

What Do South Africans Search For on Google?

Living in South Africa, I’m naturally interested in our interests. At the moment, a big search item is the new robbery ploy on the N2 in Cape Town, in which concrete blocks are placed in the road to force cars to a stop before motorists are robbed of their belongings. Another big one is the infamous kiss that took place between Drake + Madonna recently at Coachella, where Drake appears repulsed after an impromptu kiss from the megastar on stage. And of course, the “revolution” continues at the top of Google searches thanks to the rebels at UCT of #RhodesMustFall (* link to an opinion piece of mine shared over 50 times). It’s now come to light that Zuma is responsible for the defacing of the monuments around the country happening currently. Read more on this here.

From my findings, we search everything from the believable to the bizzare. Here are South Africa’s Top searches from 2014 in different categories “Current Affairs”, “How To” + “Politicians”.

Current Affairs

Oscar Pistorius Trial
Ebola outbreak
South Africa National General Elections
MH370 plane disappearance
AMCU Strike

How to…

How to rock
How to bath
How to whatsapp
How to smoke
How to longboard

Politicians

Julius Malema
Jacob Zuma
Musi Maimane
Lindiwe Mazibuko
Kgalema Motlanthe

What does the rest of the world like?

+ Over 200 million searches have been made for ‘mh370’ as we tried to make sense of what happened. Read the story

+ In 2014, the world searched for ‘guy selfie tips’ and ‘men selfie tips,’ but almost never for ‘girl selfie tips.’ Read the story

+ In October, searches for ‘ebola’ were 76x higher than in March when reports first appeared. This created the fifth-highest spike of 2014. Read the story

+ After it successfully reached Comet 67P and landed the Philae module, search interest for the Rosetta probe rocketed 29x higher as it reached its destination. Read the story

+ Pop culture character Jon Snow (played by Kit Harington) from Game of Thrones was the second highest spiking character across all TV shows in 2014

+ Sherlock was the most searched TV show from the UK in 2014

+ Jimmy Fallon was consistently searched more than his rivals, Conan O’Brien, David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.

+ The second highest searched question was “where is Downton?” (about the award-winning period drama, filmed on location in Berkshire, England)

+ The Chihuahua, the world’s smallest breed, was biggest in dog searches

+ Questions about Maya Angelou:

When did Maya Angelou die?
When was Maya Angelou born?
Where is Maya Angelou’s grave?
What is Maya Angelou’s attitude to new direction?
What did Maya Angelou do to help the world?

Looking at the broad cross-section of topics people are googling on a daily basis, you have to ask yourself: what are you searching for? What kind of conversations are you a part of + what are the most important in your mind?