What's Important?

In an infomacracy, information is king.  Knowing how obsessed we are with information, I thought it’d be fun to use the information hub, Google, to see what people are googling.  Recognizing that Google’s Instant Search feature is designed to anticipate our interests based on the first few letters or words we type, it can also be used to indicate what searches have been performed most frequently in a given region and period of time.  Here are the top five responses to several questions posed during the first week of May 2012 from Pittsburgh, PA USA:

How to…

1.      tie a tie

2.      hard boil eggs

3.      write a cover letter

4.      delete Facebook

5.      take a screenshot on a Mac

How can…

1.      I Keep From Singing

2.      I lose weight

3.      I Keep From Singing lyrics

4.      I lose weight fast

5.      I get taller (most likely to look skinnier)

How does…

1. Facebook make money
2. pinterest work
3. Twitter work
4. icloud work
5. Paypal work

Interesting hu?  All computer applications.  I guess few ask “how does solar energy work?” or “how does grass grow?”

Who is…

1.      A in Pretty Little Liars

2.      John Galt

3.      Kony

4.      the Stig

5.      Gossip Girl

Who was…

1. phone
2. the first president (Seriously!!??)
3. born on my birthday
4. the youngest president
5. the second president

When will….

1.      the world end

2.      I die

3.      Facebook timeline be mandatory

4.      Pottermore be open to the public

5.      My Life Begin lyrics

When did…

1. the Titanic sink
2. Hawaii become a state
3. slavery end
4. Whitney Houston die
5. I conceive

What is…

1. pinterest
2. my IP
3. the Hunger Games about
4. yolo
5. the Illuminati

Where are…

1. they now
2. You Going lyrics
3. your kidneys
4. my taxes
5. the Hamptons

Why do…

1. cats purr
2. men cheat
3. we yawn
4. people cut themselves
5. cats knead

I’m not sure how much can really be learned from this cultural snapshot.  These questions are all over the place, from human and animal physiology to history, popular culture, and morbid fascinations (the most popular response for when will I die? is The Death Clock - which I’ll admit I did not enter my data for!)  Thankfully, when will the world end? leads us to a NASA site where natural apocalypse scares are dispelled.  Perhaps with more data some trends in what we’re searching for will be revealed (of course the marketers of the world are analyzing the data as I write).  I’d be interested to see what results appear elsewhere around the world, so please feel free to comment and share what you find in your neck of the woods.

Another approach I used to reveal what we’re searching for was to simply type a letter (numbers are also interesting).  Here are the top three Instant Search results from March 2012 from Pittsburgh, PA by letter.

A:  Amazon, American Eagle, AOL

B:  Best Buy, Bank of America, Barnes and Noble

C:  Craigslist, Comcast.net, CNN

D:  dictionary, Duquesne Light, Dollar Bank

E:  ESPN, EBay, edline

F:  Facebook, Fox News, food network

G:  Google, gmail, Google Maps

H:  Hotmail, Home Depot, Howard Hanna

I:  IMDB, iTunes, IKEA

J:  JCPenney, Jeremy Lin, JoAnn Fabrics

K:  KDKA, Kohls, KMart

L:  Lowes, Linkedin, Levin Furniture

M:  Mapquest, Macy’s, MSN

N:  Netflix, NFL, Nordstrom

O:  Observer Reporter, Orbitz, Old Navy

P:  PA Lottery, pinterest, Pandora

Q:  QVC, Quest Diagnostics, quotes

R:  Ross Park Mall, Rivers Casino, redbox

S:  Seven Springs, Sears, Southwest

T:  Target, Twitter, translate

U:  USPS, Urban Dictionary, UPS

V:  Verizon Wireless, Victoria Secret, Verizon.net

W:  Walmart, weather, Wikipedia

X:  Xbox Live, Xbox, x factor

Y:  Youtube, Yahoo, Yahoo mail

Z:  Zappos, zillow, zip codes

Of 78 total responses, about 28% are for retail merchandisers.  About 17% are associated with entertainment: games, music, television, or sports.  Another 17% are associated with reference materials:  maps, dictionary, quotes, etc.  Computers and other online topics represented about 13% with news and weather and commercial business adding another 13%.  The balance is a smattering of individuals, places, banks, and real estate firms.

Based on that unscientific sampling, people use the internet mainly to get information about shopping with an equal amount of entertainment, reference and a lesser amount of computers and other miscellaneous topics bringing up the rear.  Is this indicative of what’s important to people?  Maybe – maybe not.  It reflects what people have used this tool to get information about in this region and time, but not necessarily what people spent most of their time being concerned about (after all, Google Instant professes to have reduced our average search times by two to five seconds per search so how much time are we really spending on these topics?  A lot!)  Again, it’d be interesting to compare notes from around the world and over time to see how similar searches compare and change.

There is a ton of information out there for anyone willing to take the time to extract it.  Many are certainly doing that, including Google itself, for better or worse.  If you care to educate yourself on some of the finer points of accessing this universe of information at your fingertips, you may find this Google site of interest:  http://www.google.com/insights/search/.

Happy Googling!

05-10-87 - Man Facing Southeast

On May 10, 1987, I saw the film Man Facing Southeast directed by Eliseo Subiela.  In a journal entry from that evening I described it as the finest film I could remember - not because of cinematography, special effects, or acting, but because it performed a true service to society.  It pointed out our insanity. 

The main character, Rantes, was either an alien investigating western psychosis, or a man with the gift of compassion.  As an alien, he professed to respond to the needs of others on a purely rational level.  A man was cold so Rantes gave him his jacket.  A family was hungry, so Rantes telepathically provided plates of food.  He understood that music pleased people and obliged with Bach!  He didn’t come to Earth to provide wealth to the poor or technological insights to scientists.  Instead, he helped those he met and consoled them by identifying with them and demonstrating that someone cared.  As a man, he had abandoned the selfish pursuits of capitalistic society to address individual problems on a one-to-one level.  Regardless of his humanity, he provided the things that people needed most.  He took responsibility to meet people’s needs rather than leave it to the uncertain discretion of bureaucratic institutions.  He made it his duty to help where he could when he could.

It seemed to me at the time that our collective insanity was rooted in selfishness and that by demonstrating selfless behavior, Rantes showed us a path to sanity.  Rather than compete for material things and horde what could be accumulated, Rantes freely shared.  Rather than turn the other way, he showed compassion and cared for people where he could.  In hindsight, I think that Subiela’s portrayal of Rantes demonstrated behaviors consistent with being human, not alien. 

Fast forward twenty-five years and a quick survey of our society suggests that general trends are more “alien” than human.  Material satisfaction for wants, not needs, drives the economy.  Compassion, in the form of health care is a major debate, not a given.  We continue to foul the environment and our attention quickly turns from the BP catastrophe in the Gulf to Dances with the Stars.  We continue to prevent women from controlling their own bodies.  The list of craziness goes on and on and it seems to me that on a macro scale we’re still largely out of touch with what is important.

Hopefully we’re doing better on a micro scale.  Can you disentangle yourself from the commercial definitions of importance?  Are you able to slow down and decide for yourself what it is that brings joy and happiness to your life?  Are you able to balance work with the equally important aspects of living?  Are you living a life that makes you happy?  Are you doing what is important to you?

I hope so.  It’s never too late to start.