You don’t know. You just don’t. Not because you’re ignorant, but because the information’s new, you’re still learning, you need directions somewhere or your body’s doing something weird. You’re smart, but you can’t know everything, and that’s OK.
As in the new book “What We Ask Google” by Simon Rogers, you can always just look things up.
Imagine what your great-grandpa would’ve thought about a computer’s search engine.
What? he’d say. Vast amounts of human knowledge, math, science, history and folderol right at his fingertips? Yep, and as data editor for Google, Rogers knows a thing or two about that, what we want to know and when.
His “job is to glean insights from the mountain of search data” that little engine offers, and he starts with what makes him “hopeful”: the idea that “so much of search is about helping.” Yes, we are a polarized nation but we still ask for ways to do good.
This information, and other tidbits like it, is available 24/7 for anyone using Google Trends. And speaking of time, searches for the time have been rising since about 2004, possibly because we wore watches more before then. We often ask about the time in other countries, too.
Google Trends knows that searches for food spike during the winter holidays, while exercise searches are highest in January. Travel searches are heavier between January and May; we look for Halloweeny stuff in October.
We seek language translations all year and, depending on where you live, we want to know “swear words” (northern U.S.) or “curse words” (in the South). Adults look to Google to make sense of teen slang and love languages.
We look up emojis, cooking directions and recipes, restaurants and food donation sites. We want to know about our bodies and symptoms. We ask about our pets, our kids, science, grieving and philosophical matters.
But, says Rogers, “… All search can do is give us the tools. It’s up to us if we follow them.”
In its first few pages, “What We Ask Google” is a little dry, but understand that it’s just a bit of stage-setting. It’s fine, it’s necessary, the good stuff comes as you keep reading. Promise.
Stick around, and you’ll see what the most common 3 a.m. question is on Google. You’ll learn what the steadiest topic of search is, why we ask Google about our digestive issues and how we use it to make our lives better.
Along the way to all this, the author drops plenty of delightful trivia that’s also relevant to today’s world. He shares data from elsewhere on the planet, proving that we sometimes ask the same kinds of questions and we all need answers, no matter where we live.
Surely, “What We Ask Google” is for the inquisitive reader because it’s fun and serious, both, but it’s also for anyone who needs to know data and wants to know where to find it. If you want a fascinating dive into curiosity and knowledge, look it up.
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s reviews of business books are read in more than 260 publications in the U.S. and Canada.