Google knows if you’ve been naughty, it knows if you’ve been nice, and the search engine’s extensive data collection and analytics allow it to regurgitate ourselves back to us, once a year. In 2022’s Google Year in Search retrospective, you can find evidence of what mattered to internet users most, over the past 12 months. It’s like Spotify Wrapped, but for everything—not just tunes and podcasts.
2022 was a tough years in many ways, and the Google data reflects that. For one, there were fewer memes than in past years like 2019. News items dominated, along with some pop culture scandals.
There are some surprises. For instance “quilt shops” made it into the top trending “near me” searches in both Anchorage, Alaska and Des Moines, Iowa. And movies and other media had people trying to learn fictional languages like High Valyrian and Minion, according to a Google press release. Then, there were also some less surprising results, like Ukraine sliding into the number one search spot for news.
Click through for your global data analytics palm reading, or your annual online check-up. Whatever way you prefer to think of it, information lies ahead.
