Google Sociology
Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog. Mostly because it’s easier to tweet, but also I haven’t had anything to blog about…
Until I remembered the potential of Google in terms of sociology studies. I’ll be taking a sociology class this semester as it’s something that I’ve always wanted to study. Then I was inspired by this tweet:
The link can be found here and it really does show the difference in men and women and what they expect out of relationships. But I decided to take it one step further and analyze what people in general ask the web for advice, so I started with some pretty generic questions, the first being “How can I…?” and these were the results:
What’s interesting to me that the top result is “How can I keep from singing lyrics?” and a slight variation in the question is featured later. What does this say about our culture? Clearly there is a creativity in people that is shunned in some circles. When did this become frowned upon?
Moving on, the next question was “How should I…?”
The top results for this question has to do with hair. As a culture, a hairstyle can help define who we are as a person. It’s interesting that the web has become the source of advice in such matters. Typically a barber or hair stylist has helped out in making this decision, perhaps turn to the web as to not waste time when they do get their haircut.
The next question posed was “How often should I…?” and these were the results
Interestingly, the number of responses were equal in terms of human and canine maintenance. This comes as no surprise given how vain some people can be about themselves or their pets. Overall these results were par for the course.
The last question I posed was “Where should I…?”
I hope you have enjoyed this post, feel free to comment with your finds!
Edit: there’s a site dedicated to this behavior studies! It can be found at http://autocompleteme.com/