What We Ask Google: A Surprisingly Hopeful History of Humankind

Rogers (Facts Are Sacred), a data editor for Google, offers a rose-colored reflection on commonly googled questions. He thematically groups the queries, sprinkling his rundown with brisk commentary on how they reveal a world of seekers. There are cyclical patterns, like baby and sleep questions spiking around 2 a.m. and swelling cookbook searches every December, as well as larger social trends, like how “low calorie” supplanted “low fat” in 2013, and how Covid and the Ukraine war coincided with increased searches on anxiety. Rogers focuses mainly on unearthing uplifting patterns, like how careers “that help people” have been more popular than those “that pay well” since 2020, and how, during disasters, searches always evolve from attempts to understand the threat to attempts to proactively navigate it. He even casts frequent searches about depression and miscarriages in a positive light, as they reveal people yearning to grapple effectively with life’s most difficult challenges. Unfortunately, Rogers sometimes seems to misread questions, like when he frames “how often can I donate plasma” as evidence of altruism instead of financial desperation, or parses “does bereavement include uncles” to not be a question about work leave but rather what is socially acceptable grief. The result is a fun if shallow tour of the modern world’s most burning questions. (May)