A day in the life of Google: New study reveals what Americans search for down to the minute
Published 9:07 am Sunday, July 12, 2015
- The search engine that powers America thinks it knows you better than you know yourself.
If you’ve ever used insomnia as an excuse to ponder the meaning of it all, you’re not alone.
A recent New York Times analysis of Google statistics, which the search engine giant is now crunching down to the minute, had found that Americans—or at least New Yorkers—are most philosophical at 3:16 a.m.; whether the spike in searches for “how to roll a joint” between 1 and 2 a.m. is any way related has yet to be determined.
Other keywords corresponding to daily American pursuits follow a more obvious chronology.
Folks are checking for their news and weather mostly before 5:30 a.m. (So good morning!)
The preponderance of “unblocked games”—online video games school administrators block with website filtering software—between 8:04 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, suggests your teenager’s cellphone isn’t just on during the school day in case of emergency.
It’s no surprise that recipe sites are hit hardest leading up to dinner (4:52 p.m. to be precise), nor that digestive issues flood the search fields after dinner between 6 and 7 p.m.
The sort of adult keywords unfit to print tease Google’s servers mostly between 12 and 2 a.m. “Prayer” begins pinging a few hours later.
And in yet another example of sleep deprivation’s effects on cognitive performance, misspellings of “facebook” as “facbook” double between 2 and 3 a.m.
You can learn even more about what makes your fellow American’s tick (and click) here.