Words that come to mind when I think of 2020 (starting with a few curse words) include adjustment, chaos, isolation, heartbreak, mental health, struggle... these aren't the words I would have guessed on January 1, 2020. As the song FY2020 states:
"December 31st, I grabbed a beer
Threw it up, said, "2020 is my year, bitches"
(Three, two, one, Happy New Year)
And I honestly thought that that was true
Until I gave this motherfucker like a month or two"
It's true. This has been a year of pandemonium and pivoting to a new normal. One thing that Google has right in their assessment, "Year In Search" is that the world had a lot of questions. A LOT. And frankly so did I! For me, this year was spent questioning how to get through tough times and how to understand other people. (Frankly, I understand other less than I did before).
First, here are some of the unique but telling and reflective ways search behaviors evolved as the infamous 2020 unraveled - as told by Google in their latest annual video release. They're not bad are good, they just are.
It's no surprise that amidst a global pandemic, we turned to search engines to begin questioning everything. There are a million blogs that will repeat what this video, every news outlet, and social media are going to repeat: "2020 was tough, we survived, we made due, etc."
What else? What other conclusions can we draw from 2020 search trends? What takeaways can we learn from? Here, we're going to explore 5 unique and revealing search trends about our human nature and how it has evolved over what is arguably one of the most interesting years in global history.
We've expanded our vocabularies (and maybe our minds)! U.S. searches for gender-neutral pronouns reached an all-time high in 2020.
We woke up and spoke up - with collective civil action! Protest near me reached an all-time high and showed up in every state in America.
"Sunset Near Me" reached an all-time high in 2020, showing our need and value for serenity amidst shelter in place orders and shutdowns.
We didn't just shelter in place, we decided to shelter with a pet? The search term "foster a dog" peaked in 2020 breaking all-time records.
Record high unemployment and increasing time spent at home by everyone increased "how to learn coding" searches to top search charts!
For more insights into the top searches of 2020, visit A YEAR IN SEARCH by Google. I hope you've enjoyed this tidbit of search extrapolation more than you've enjoyed 2020. Now let's end this year and start the next!