IT Tech Corner: Google Trends

According to Google Trends, the most popular search terms for people in Minnesota in the last 30 days were Minneapolis, Weather, News, Google, Youtube, NFL, Games, Amazon, Reddit, Timberwolves. First of all, we should all pause and reflect on why with all the weather and news apps in the world people are still typing into a Google search the words weather and news. And who is typing Google into a Google search? What are they trying to do? They can’t be bothered to type google.com in the address bar? And the same with Youtube. Come on, people! No wonder we need AI. Jeez Louise. 

But perhaps more interesting than the overall totals is looking at the search terms that rose the most in popularity over the same time period. One was about the Grammy awards, one was about the cold weather, one was about MLK Day and the other seven in the top ten related to immigration enforcement activities and community responses. Many of these search terms rose by more than 2000% in frequency, mainly because they had never been searched before. 

Drilling a bit deeper and closer to home, rising search queries associated with the word “pastor” are nearly entirely related to an infamous individual and church that ruled the news and social media posts recently related to the only thing on everyone’s mind. 

Trends in Google searches are a reflection of our society at a point in time, but they also reflect our values and say a lot about who we trust to inform us. When I was younger I was often told to “look it up in the encyclopedia Britannica” or “go to the library.” 

A few questions that come to mind from this brief foray into Google search trends are: What are you searching for? What are you finding?