Something You Should Know - The Science of Getting Lucky & What People Secretly Google

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

We often hear that we’re all connected by six degrees of separation—that you can link yourself to anyone on the planet through just a handful of people. But with billions of people in the world, how could that possibly be true? And in a world of social media and constant connectivity, is that number shrinking or growing? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-98072-2 Some people just seem to have all the luck. Opportunities appear, things fall into place, and they end up in the right place at the right time. Is that just chance—or is there something more going on? Tina Seelig, who has spent more than 25 years teaching entrepreneurship and innovation at Stanford University, says luck isn’t nearly as random as it seems. In our conversation, she explains how certain behaviors and ways of thinking can actually increase your chances of getting lucky—and how small, everyday actions can open doors you didn’t even know were there. She is author of What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements (https://amzn.to/3RaPQ2F). Here is the link to her TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/tina_seelig_the_little_risks_you_can_take_to_increase_your_luck You know what you search for on Google—but what about everyone else? When people have anonymity, they often reveal what they’re really curious about, worried about, or struggling with. The patterns in those searches can be surprising—and sometimes unexpectedly hopeful. Simon Rogers, Data Editor at Google and author of What We Ask Google: A Surprisingly Hopeful History of Humankind (https://amzn.to/4w0fvLr), shares what these billions of searches reveal about human nature, what people are really thinking about, and what we can learn when we look at all that data together. It’s often said that “nice guys finish last.” But is there actually some truth to that? Research suggests there may be a relationship between how agreeable you are and how much you earn. But the story isn’t as simple as “nice equals less money.” It raises a deeper question: are agreeable people undervalued—or are more difficult personalities rewarded in ways we don’t fully recognize? The answer may challenge what you think about success, personality, and what it really takes to get ahead. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167487022000812 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AQUA TRU: Take the guesswork out of pure, great-tasting water. Head to ⁠https://AquaTru.com⁠ now and get 20% off your purifier using promo code SYSK. AquaTru even comes with a 30-day best-tasting water guarantee or your money back. POCKET HOSE: For a limited time, when you purchase a new Pocket Hose Ballistic, you'll get a FREE 360 degree rotating pocket pivot and a FREE thumb drive nozzle! Just text SYSK to 64000 RULA: This Mental Health Awareness Month, don’t just think about your mental health - actually take the step to take care of it. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Rula.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. QUINCE: Refresh your everyday with luxury you will actual use! Go to ⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ PLANET VISIONARIES : We love the Planet Visionaries podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Listen or watch on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you are listening to this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know you like interesting and thought-provoking conversations and ideas because you listen to something you should know. So let me recommend another podcast I know you will enjoy. It's the Jordan Harbinger Show. Jordan has a real talent for getting his guests to share stories and offer thought-provoking insights. Over the years, I've sent a lot of people to listen and I get feedback from people who are so glad I introduce them to the Jordan Harbinger Show. Recently he discussed Scientology and the children who are raised in that organization. It's a fascinating conversation. And he talked with Dr. Rhonda Patrick about how to protect your mind and body from the modern world. And it's tougher than you think.

I've gotten to know Jordan pretty well. We talk frequently, and I tell you, he is a very smart, insightful guy who does a hell of a podcast. Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. listen to podcasts. Today on something you should know, is it true your only six degrees of separation from everyone else? Then how to attract more luck in your life by understanding how luck really works. I think a lot of people think the luck just happens and some people are luckier than others.

And what I'm trying to do is to show people the amount of agency they have in their lives to make the things they want come to life. Also, the nicer you are, the less money you're likely to make. And what do people mostly search for on Google? And how does it change? You know, 15% of searches are brand new each day. What? 15% of searches each day are brand new, which means they've never been searched before.

So, yeah, like the data is constantly evolving and changing. I think some of the big themes have stayed the same. Call this today on Something You Should Know. Hey, it's Hillary Frank from The Longest Shortest Time, an award-winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health. We talk about things like sex ed, birth control, pregnancy, bodily autonomy, and of course, kids of all ages. But you don't have to be a parent to listen.

If you like surprising, funny, poignant stories about human relationships and, you know, periods, the longest shortest time is for you. Find us in any podcast app or at longest shortest time.com. Something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. I'm sure you've heard the idea that your six degrees of separation from anyone in the world, Kevin Bacon or anyone else. That idea is still around, but there's a twist to it,

and that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm Mike Herruthers, glad you're here. So the idea of six degrees of separation is still around, and it's not just a fun theory. Modern research suggests it may be a built-in feature of how human networks naturally form. Even in massive real-world data sets, millions of people, or even entire people, populations. People are still separated by only five or six connections. And in some digital networks, that number drops even lower, closer to three or four degrees of separation. So which is it? Well, the answer's both. The exact number changes depending on the network. But the big takeaway

doesn't change. Whether it's three, four, or six degrees of separation, you are far closer to a complete stranger than your intuition tells you. And that is something you should know. Wouldn't it be great if you were luckier? If more things just seem to go your way? The right opportunity shows up. The right person crosses your path. Things just work out.

Most people think luck is random, something you're born with or not. But what if that's wrong? What if luck isn't. about chance at all, but about how you see opportunities, how you respond to them, and the choices you make along the way. My guest says luck is a skill, something you can actually build. Tina Seleag has spent more than 25 years teaching at Stanford University about entrepreneurship, innovation, and how people create opportunities. She's author of a book called What I Wish I

knew about luck, a crash course in turning aspirations into achievements. Hi, Tina, welcome to something you should know. Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. So define luck for me from your perspective, because I think different people think luck is different things. So what is luck to you? And this is really a perfect place to start. First of all, the definition of luck is success or failure apparently caused by chance. And the most interesting thing there is the word apparently. And that's what I've been really diving into is that what is actually behind the curtain when people are lucky? What are the things they've actually done? So that's one piece of the puzzle.

The other thing that's very important to get set at the beginning is that there's a very big difference between fortune and luck. Fortune is things that happen to you. Luck is something that you have some agency over. So you don't control who your parents are or what the way. weather is today or whether there's a pandemic. But you do control whether you say hello to the person standing next to you in line and open up a whole world of possibilities. So there's a big difference.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, one is just pure chance and one is something else. Well, chance is also interesting. There's a big difference between chance and gambling, right? If I buy a lottery ticket that's gambling, I have no control over the outcome. but if I play poker, that's a game of chance, I could actually get better at it. So I think it's very important to distinguish between the two, just as a difference between fortune and luck, because if you take a chance and throw your hat in the ring for a new job, you can really set yourself up to be much more successful if you're really well prepared and you go about it the right way.

Well, I mean, you sort of, I mean, you can't win the lottery unless you play, but you still... You're right. But you probably can't win either, even if you do. play, but you can never win if you don't play. Exactly. You can gamble and you can't win unless you play, but you can't affect the outcome. But with something that's a game of chance or taking a chance, if I take a chance and asking someone out on a date, the way I do it changes the outcome, right? if I'm polite and I'm dressed nicely and I approach someone in the right way, it's much more likely that they're going to say yes to me, even though I've taken a chance.

Well, there's that old saying, and it's mixing up your definitions a little bit, but fortune favors the bold. Oh, I just love you brought that up, okay? Whenever I tell people that I'm writing a book and doing research on luck, they say, oh, yes, yes, fortune favors the prepared mind, usually that, or fortune favors the bold. And one of the things I always question is, okay, so what is a prepared mind? Just like people often say, oh, yes, yes, the harder I work, the luckier I get. Well, the question becomes, what is that hard work? So that's what I've been trying to unpack, both the apparently in the luck is apparently caused by

chance, what is a prepared mind, and also what is the hard work. So essentially trying to figure out the physics of luck, you know, what actually is going on behind the scenes for people who are luckier than others. And in broad sweeping strokes here, what's the answer to that question? Oh my gosh, there's so many things. So you have to start, the framework that I created is that luck is like the wind. Luck is ubiquitous. It's very powerful. but you often can't see it, and you wouldn't even know it was there, unless you build a sail to catch it.

And so how do you build a sail to catch the winds of luck? And there are three parts. There's the first part, which is you have to build your ship. That's the internal work, the prepared mind. There is recruiting your crew, because most luck comes through other people, and then there's hoisting the sale, which is the hard work. But I know people that seem to be very lucky in the sense that they kind of breeze through life or seemingly breeze through life.

Things kind of go their way and they never seem to break a sweat. And then there are other people who seemingly work very hard and diligently and try very hard and don't get the breaks. And I wonder what the difference is between those people. Is it fortune or is it luck or what is it? It's a combination of the two. But let's think about, let's look at the people who are really lucky. So much of what makes people lucky is things that you actually don't see up front. But if you pull back the curtain, you will see.

You'll see the relationships that they're building. They're building trust. They're helping other people. They're showing appreciation. They're adding randomness to their life. They've become very good at being resilient. They take some risks. 20 different things that they're doing, you may or may not see it.

So can I tell you some examples? Please. Okay. It's an example that is just so powerful because it's so provocative. I was in the grocery store with my young son. He was maybe five or six years old, and a man came up to me who was there with his young daughter, who was about the same age. and he said, could you explain to me how to make this lemonade?

He had a can of lemonade. So I said, yes, you know, one can of lemonade and three cans of water. And then he walked away and I thought, that's sort of interesting. Most people sort of know how to make lemonade. They don't even put the instructions on the can because they assume you know what to do. So I got in line behind him at the grocery store and I said, gee, you know, where are you from? I don't recognize your accent. And he said, oh, I'm from Chile.

I said, really? that's so interesting, what brings you here? And he said, well, I'm taking over my family's business, and I'm going to be, I'm here to learn about entrepreneurship. So I said, oh, I actually run the entrepreneurship center at Stanford School of Engineering. Here's my business card if I can help you. Well, he did reach out to me and he said, you know, I'd like to meet some people maybe in the area. And I said, no problem. I made a few introductions. I actually sort of forgot about that. He then reached out to me again and said, I'm bringing a delegate. from Chile, you know, would you like to be involved? I said, sure, I'd be happy to help out. That was the end of it. Two

years later, I went to Chile to run a conference and I reached out to him. And I said, hey, Eduardo, would you like to meet for coffee? So when I came to meet with him, he said, oh gosh, I just don't have time, but please bring a couple of your colleagues with you. I've got a treat for you. So we met at the lobby of his company and we were taken up to the roof, picked up by his company's helicopter, given a ride around the entire city of Santiago, up to his family's ski resort, and then back down again. Now, you could say, Tina, you were just lucky. But you, someone else didn't see all the things I did that led to that moment of getting this helicopter ride. It didn't just happen. It happened with my helping him immediately at the store.

Then following up and then following up. I certainly didn't do those things because I wanted a helicopter ride. But if you're the sort of person who is helping other people and is putting yourself out there and following up with him when I went to Chile, you end up with these opportunities that other people might say, oh, you're just lucky. So luck comes as the result of effort of doing something, not just sitting around waiting for lightning to strike. Exactly. Do you think people don't get that? Yes. I think a lot of people think the luck just happens, and some people are luckier than others. And what I'm trying to do is to show people the amount of agency they have in their lives to make the things they want come to life. I mean, this is my entire reason for living is to help people make their dreams. come true. And you only can do that if you know how the physics of luck actually works, right? There is a cause and effect in the world. So one of the things that seems clear to me is I understand that it takes effort and you have to get out there and you have to interact with people. And sometimes

nothing comes of it, probably more times than not. And sometimes things fall apart and sometimes things fail. And then there are those people who dust off and get back up on the horse and those people who take that failure and crawl into a hole. Oh my goodness. You're absolutely right. That seems to be like the fulcrum of luck right there. You can either suck it up and move on and try again or you can just say, see, I'm not very lucky. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely One of the key tools for someone who's lucky is resilience. Being able to, as you say, dust yourself off and get back up on the horse. When I go around with my students and I ask them, what is their mental model for failure? Like what happens when you hit bottom? What is that made of? And people say, oh, it's burning lava or a black hole, you know, quicksand. And like, wow, if that was really the case, I could imagine you wouldn't want to try anything if you think that if you fail, you're going to end up in a black hole. Now, other students and other people I talk to say, oh, no, it's a trampoline or it's rubber,

or it's a swimming pool. I dive in and then come back up. And I invite people to think about where they got this message about what was going to happen when they fail. I mean, are you really going to die if you get a B on your exam? Are you really going to die if you ask someone on a date and they say, no thank you? Are you really going to die if you apply for a job and you don't get it? No, of course not. So helping people rethink the consequences of failure or disappointment so that they're willing to take some more calculated risks. Well, how do you do that? Well, one of the most important things is just understanding your risk profile. I have my students fill out a riskometer where They map out all the different types of risks that one could have, social risk, emotional risk,

financial risk, physical risk, intellectual risks. And then they map out what type of risk they feel comfortable taking and then seeing where their risk profile might be holding them back. Right. If I'm a very low physical risk taker, but I really, really want to go jump out of a perfectly good airplane with a parachute, I'm going to have to stretch because otherwise I'm not going to do I want to talk about what you call recruit your crew and do that in just a moment. My guest is Tina Seleag, and she's author of a book called What I Wish I Knew About Luck.

So Tina, going back to the gentleman from Chile with the helicopter you met at the grocery store, well, most of the people I run into at the grocery store, nothing ever happens. They don't have a helicopter, you know. Well, you might not know. Well, right. Maybe they do. Maybe they do. Or something that's like a helicopter.

Maybe it's a business deal. Maybe it's a new friend. Maybe it's, you know, it's something else. I mean, I'm a deep believer that there's a prize in every room and it's up to you to find it. And I think if you go through life with that mindset, that there is a prize, maybe it's a little prize. You know, maybe it's just a smile on your face when you say hello to someone. But maybe it's a big prize. because every decision you make

has the possibility of changing your life, right? I have so many friends who I met because they were standing in line next to me. I mean, I can tell you a story. I was standing in line on the way to go onto an airplane and I had a backpack that had a logo on it for a conference and there was a woman standing behind me and she saw the logo and she said,

oh, did you go to that conference? I said, yes. we started chatting in line and had such a nice conversation. We switched our seats to sit next to each other on the airplane. We talked for nonstop for five hours across the country. We stayed in touch. And she's now one of my best friends. I just heard from her this morning.

And we've collaborated on a whole number of projects. That never would have happened if we hadn't said hello. So here's something I'd like to get you to comment on, and that is, like, for example, I'm not big on networking things, networking events, because it always seems like, well, not always, it often seems like people talk to me because they want to know what I can do for them. And it doesn't feel like people are really doing what you're talking about, which is, you know, helping people, giving back to. you know, creating, it's more of a transactional. What can you do for me? I like your way better, but it's hard to find those interactions. Okay, Mike, I think you're onto something really important there.

This is not transactional. This is about building authentic connections with people. I really don't like the word networking and network. You have a community. And when you have a community, they are there to support you thick or thin. And it is one of the most powerful things you can have in life

is having a community people that you can trust and support you when you need it. It starts, though, with helping other people. And the more you help other people, the more comes back to you. There is research it shows that if you do something even small for someone, you might even forget about it.

But they remember your goodwill and what comes back to you is often quite a bit bigger, right? I help you with your math homework when we're in college, and later you help me find a job. And it actually works the opposite, right? Luck is a long game because I'm going to ask you, have you ever had this situation where there's someone you know and they did something that was not very nice or something that was unseemly or treated you badly or didn't show appreciation? and then many years later, you get a reference call for them or they ask for help. And you kind of do a double take and think, do I really want to?

Am I going to give this person a good reference? Am I going to really help this person? Whereas if they had been someone who had been, you know, generous to you in the past, without wanting anything in return, when it comes time for them to need something from you, you will be very generous in offering a fabulous recommendation or an opportunity. Do you agree with me? Yeah. Oh, of course.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. But people don't realize that. You know, I sometimes have someone in my life who does something that's really inappropriate. And the first thing I think is, wow, you made a big mistake. Because, of course, you could get away with that right now. But I am pretty sure that at some point in the future, someone is going to ask someone on my team.

Someone's going to ask them for a reference for you. And everyone just saw this behavior. They're not going to help you. Can you give me a really simple example of an opportunity to create luck in your life that people tend to miss? Well, I'll give you just a simple example that I see all the time. I mean, I'm working at a university, and I might bring in someone really fascinating to come and speak to the students. And that person would say at the end, you know, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or to reach out, you know, if you want my slides. Do you know how many people actually follow up?

First of all, the most basic thing is to follow up and send a note and say thank you very much. much for coming in. That was really insightful. I learned X, Y, Z from you. That's the basics. You know how many people do that? Practically no one. So if you take the time to just say thank you, and then you could follow up and say, guess what? I would love to have your slides, or here's a follow-up question, or, you know, anything else. But what's the intent here? Do you send the thank you note and ask for the slides because you really want them? Or are you doing it? to try to create a situation where luck will come your way. The connection will help you.

What is the goal here? The goal is to reach the objectives you have, right? If I want to start a company, if I want to write a book, if I want to have a family, I mean, whatever my goal is, there are things that I need to put in place to get to that goal. And all of these things require engaging other people. And there are things you do that make it more likely that you're going to reach that goal. And a lot of that, as you say, it looks like luck. But what I'm trying to unpack it and say, listen, there's actually a whole list of things that people who are lucky do to make it more likely that these positive things happen.

See, I think when I look back in my life of the things that I think I was lucky at, and I've had plenty of things that I was lucky at, some of them are what you're talking about, but some of them came out of the blue. Just completely. Give me an example. So I used, for many years, for most of my career, I was a disc jockey on the radio.

And one day, I got a call from a guy who was producing a television show, for Fox and said, we want to use you as the announcer on this show. Okay, perfect. And they did. And it was an incredible experience, but it wasn't like something I was trying to get. I never even thought about it.

I understand, okay, Mike, this is perfect example. And this is why I debated the role of luck in our lives with my father for decades, is exactly this situation. Why did they call you? Why didn't they call someone else? Why did they call you? Because you had done all sorts of things to set the stage that you were the obvious person for them to call. If you had been a jerk, if you hadn't been good at your job, they would never have called you.

Do you think, because I think this, that luck, good luck and bad luck are self-fulfilling prophecies a lot of the time. If you think you are a lucky person, you're more likely to be a lucky person. Well, that's probably true. Because if you're thinking you're a lucky person, what you're doing is you're probably opening your eyes and looking for luck. You're looking for opportunities. Right. If you think you're unlucky, you're going to be, you know, keeping your eyes closed and, you know, putting your earbuds in. You know, it's funny.

I walk around campus and I see all these people wearing hair. headphones and earbuds and staring at their phone. And I think this is the most unlucky thing you could possibly do. You are walking around without engaging with other people. You have now missed a thousand opportunities that, you know, every single day, all those people you passed who you didn't smile with, you didn't have a conversation. And then you say, you know, you're lonely. Well, gee, you just walked through life in a way that you didn't engage with anyone who could have been your next best friend. Well, this shines a very different light on luck that I think, I think most people don't think about, so I'm glad you were here to talk about it.

I've been talking with Tina Seelig, who has spent 25 years teaching at Stanford University, and she's author of a book called What I Wish I Know About Luck, a Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements. She has a TED Talk that we'll link to in the show notes, and there's a link to her book in there as well. Thank you, Tina. Super. Thanks so much, Mike. Have a super day. Imagine if you could peek into what millions of people are secretly searching for online. What would you learn? Because what people type into Google isn't just random curiosity.

It's often private, unfiltered, and sometimes things people wouldn't say out loud. And when you look at those searches at scale, a picture starts to emerge, a picture of what people worry about, what they hope for, what confuses them, even what they're afraid of. So what does all that searching say about us? My guest has been digging into exactly that. Simon Rogers is Google's data editor, leading a team that analyzes what people search for and what it reveals.

He's author of a book called What We Ask Google, a surprisingly hopeful history of human kind. Hey, Simon, welcome to something you should know. Hi, thanks for having me. So to start this conversation, it's probably a good idea to ask you to explain what it is you do at Google. Okay, so I'm data editor at Google, which means that wherever Google trends data shows up in the world, that's basically my baby.

So with my team, we're really data storytellers. They're not so much statisticians or analysts, but really, we're really, well. what we do is we use the data to help tell stories around the, about the world around us, really. And why do you do that? Well, I think it's basically because this data that we have tells us a lot about who we are as humans and the things that we care about and the things that we focus on every day. And I think with data on its own, if you just see data or numbers, they're just numbers. They don't mean anything.

And I think often it takes a person to help. can translate that for people and see how we can see ourselves reflecting back to us through the data. Are there any broad sweeping things you can say about what people ask Google? Obviously, everybody has their own reason for asking whatever it is they ask. But in general, what kinds of things do they ask? Well, I would say there are a couple of things that came through in the data when I was looking at. One of which is that, you know, we are not as lonely as we may feel. the things that we do in search are things that everybody else does too

and we may not realize it we may think we're the only person looking for something but actually you're often part of a community whether you realize it or not the second thing I would say is we're really seeing a big spike in people wanting to help others and you see this in search where people search for how to help or how to donate after a crisis has happened or there's been an earthquake and people want to respond to it and you definitely see that coming through in the data. And then the other thing I would say is that we know a lot less than we think we do. So essentially, all of the basic things in life that perhaps we feel we should have learned by now,

we search for every day, whether it's like, you know, how to tie a tie or how to boil an egg. So really we know nothing and we need help to get through our everyday lives. Well, it makes you wonder, like, how did people ever get along and get by without having search engine like Google to ask like, how do I do this? Because isn't that, a lot of searches is how do I blank? Absolutely. You find that people search for how to fix, say, or how do I do this? And often those things are not necessarily around themselves, but they're around others, like how to help maybe somebody with anxiety. You can really see that in the data. So we did a project where we looked at what people search for how to fix in different

countries and in the US it's things like light bulbs and windows and in France it's toilets. You know, it's like there are things that are same in the way we search and there are things that are very different around the world. How much of the searches are just trivial things like, I don't know, how many movies has Tom Cruise been in or how old is Taylor Swift? Just, you know, fairly irrelevant things that people are just curious about. Yeah, I mean, I would I wouldn't say, I would say nothing's relevant in the way that people search. This all tells us something. But a lot of searches are about everyday stuff.

And the other thing about it is it's incredibly ephemeral. So you might be searching for Tom Cruise movies one moment. The next you'll be searching for trying to understand why stories in the news or why, you know, how to help somebody in your family. So I'd say that it just kind of reflects us in our weirdnesses and that we search for one thing, one second, another completely different thing a second later. How many times, how often do people search Google? When there are billions every day, I mean, I don't know the total numbers because it's always

changing. So I can't tell you how many there are on a given day, but I can compare one place to another place so you can compare a big city to a small one, for instance. And where's the biggest hub of Google searches? I mean, it just reflects population, really. So if you did a map of the world in Google searches, what you would see is basically just reflects where humans are. Where people are, they're going to be searching. And you can definitely see that through the data.

So here's a question I've always wondered about and you're the perfect person to ask. So every time they catch a killer, right? They catch some guy that killed. They say, well, we looked at his Google searches and it said, how do you sink a body with concrete blocks in his Google search? And so that's so but do a lot of people search that kind of thing? Or is it only serial killers that search how to kill people? I hate to tell you that basically most searches are pretty normal. The stuff that we all do, whether it's like parenting or food or health or pets or grief even,

because most of the searches we do are things that we all have in common. Obviously, you know, weird stuff happens to the world. There's weird data. But the other thing about Google Trends data is that it's, because it's aggregated, and there's all these privacy restrictions put in it. We can't see trends that are just done by one or two people. We can only see trends that are done by the population as a whole. So we won't get an answer to that.

We won't know. I'm afraid not from a Google trend, for sure. What about when people search? I imagine searches at 2 o'clock in the morning are different than searches at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah, definitely. And what we see is there's a real kind of variation around the day, but there are things that are very common.

Like, for instance, people search for the words baby and sleep around two in the morning and emergency room about four in the morning. But then during the day, is people searching for lunch or dinner or when to go to the gym or even things like at night, searches tend to get more kind of metaphysical, like, why am I here? Searches, those kind of things would spike at night. So we're creatures of habit in that we tend to do certain things around the same time, but there is really a calendar of the way we search.

And it goes for the year as well. Like, for instance, the peak for learning to play piano is around Christmas, because I guess people are learning to play piano for Christmas. So there's like there are things that just pop up at the same time every minute or every day or even every year. I don't know if this is something that you can address, but it's something I've wondered about. Since Google has added AI summaries to its searches, has it changed the way and what people? people search? I would say so we're still really early in this process of going through the data and you know AI data has only really been around for a year or so.

So we don't have a lot to go on but why my feeling and maybe are wrong in this and we'll see is that actually it's not necessarily changing what people search for but there is a revolution in the way that you search. So query is getting a lot longer for instance. You know you might search instead of searching for a restaurant near me, you might search for Vietnamese restaurant near me, where I can get a state all 10 with a large group and take a birthday cake, you know, you'll add a lot more detail to those queries. I'd also say there's kind of a cognitive offloading going on where we'll ask AI to do the work for us around all

of the search where we might have done ourselves in the past. What surprises you about this? What, when you look at the data, what are you going, God, I didn't see that coming. I mean, I guess like when I started writing it, I didn't necessarily think, You know, it's quite an optimistic book, I guess, and I didn't know that that's what was going to happen. I definitely felt that, yeah, I was just interested in seeing what the data showed. But partly because I guess the first chapter I wrote was actually the grief chapter, and it was something I did just after my mama died. And so I thought, well, this will be the hardest one to write, and it's very personal to me.

I kind of started diving into the data, and it really showed me how, even though I felt terribly alone in that moment, quite lonely, I guess, in that moment. I wasn't the only person doing it. I wasn't the only person searching for those things. And I think we see that often. And a lot of the searches around how to help somebody in that situation. So really for me, then, I started seeing that actually,

maybe this tells us that things are a little bit better or people are a little bit kinder than we think they are. Because often we're searching for how to help others. And it was kind of reassuring to me, actually, when I was in that situation where I could see I wasn't the only person doing something. How long, you know, I'd lose track of time. How long have we been searching Google and other search engines? Like, when did that become a thing where it seemed like people were really turning to that for answers?

Wow. I mean, I can still remember the first time I used Google search back in like the late 90s. We only have Google Trends data going back to 2004, which is still pretty amazing because we've got this, you know, decades of data there, and it's something we didn't have before, and it's publicly available. So we can all look at it, and we can all search it, and we can all see how the rest of the world is looking for this stuff.

But yeah, really, the data itself that we have goes back 2004. And you can see it in real time or even just like over the whole period. And in 2004, was it that different than in 2006? Well, it's interesting. I think like some things are obviously different. Like if you look at, we do this project called Year In Search every year, which is a kind of guide to the year in search. And, you know, like there are some things you know are going to be different. So obviously different movies, different actors, musicians, all of that sort of thing.

But then there are some things which are kind of resonate the same. Like people definitely search for helping or family stuff or search for stuff around the kids or food or recipes. and you can see that data, there's a kind of consistency there, which is really nice to see that kind of shine through the data as well. Are there things, though, that people search today that they never searched for before or seldom did or have things like we don't search for that anymore or anything like that? Yeah, I mean, 15% of searches are brand new each day. What?

15% of searches each day are brand new, which means they've never been searched before. So yeah, like the data is constantly evolving and changing. I think some of the big themes have stayed the same. But yeah, there are always things that are new. You know, if you look at the top search questions, like they include things like people used to search for how to make slime. It was incredibly popular. It was one of the top searches.

And there was a concurrent search which went with that, which is how to get slime out of the carpet. So you can see those moments where things change because they're fatty or they're trendy. Maybe the boo-boos fit into that this year. But then the big questions, those big moments are definitely resonant and they continue right the way through. I'm shocked to hear that 15% of the searches are new. It seems like everything's been asked by now. Yeah, apparently not. I mean, I guess like all the variables in humans, right, that there's always new situations for people. Obviously, some things are going to be new because they're names or things that didn't exist before. But you definitely see there's like we're always striving to kind of understand the world around us.

And that is something you can definitely see in the data. It seems from what you're saying that most searches are pretty personal, that there's something that it's on my mind right now that I need to know. It's not like bigger things. I think it's all personal, really, in a way. So it's a weird mix of the personal and the public. because I guess like when you search for something, it's a genuine expression of interest. You're not presenting yourself, like you might do with like social media. What you're doing is you're saying, this is what I genuinely care about.

But that, what you care about is always personal to you too. You get an amazing picture of like who we are as humans that way. So what are some of the top current searches right now? Oh, right now, if you look today, a lot of searches around flight cancellations. There's a spike in searches for Olympic tickets. at the moment going on. You can see a lot of data, but it changes constantly. So I'm telling you this now.

Within half an hour, it'll be completely different, I'm sure. And like when you see there are big stories happening in the world, people want to understand what they're about and so on. So you definitely see it reflecting the news too. It is so interesting if you stop and think about the ability to get this instant access to information that before took a trip to the live, or it's hard to imagine life without this. It is, isn't it?

I mean, I think that's what really shone through in the data to me, I guess, is that you could see how this has become so much apart of people's everyday lives. When the dust settles from when you look at this, like, what else do you walk away with either scratching your head or going, boy, this is just unbelievable? What are the things that really astonish you about this data? I mean, it's just how varied it is. You think you know people, but really we don't. I mean, like, some of the stuff is just weird to me.

Like, one of the top searched animals for, can I keep dot dot dot as a pet is a panda. Now, I don't think you can keep a panda as a pet, really. But the fact that people are searching for that is hilarious to me. But also, I think the way that you can see these big social changes as well. So, for instance, searches for look after parents have overtaken searches, for look after kids. And that speaks to something I think is a broader social trend around, you know,

this sandwich generation that a lot of us find ourselves in right now. Wow. Anything else that really just really knocks your socks off that like... I mean, one of the top searched How to Say I Love You is how to say I love you in dog, which is we love our dogs for sure. in France the top searched actually in Paris

the top search food is pizza and meaning they're looking for to get a pizza yeah I guess so so that one of the top searches in Paris is to where do I get a pizza oh the top food searches

the top searched food in Paris is pizza you know you're in the capital the culinary capital of the world yeah there's lots of stuff like that there are things like you look at kids They're very different, different places. So in Australia, parents search for coding classes for kids. In Canada, it's boxing.

In UK, it's parkour. And in the US, it's etiquette, which I thought was interesting. Etiquette? Yeah, etiquette, exactly. I can't tell you why it is, but this is people are interesting and varied in all of our many ways. I would have thought, if anything, that would be much more of a British thing than an American. Yeah, right? Me too. Yeah, not in Britain.

So what you're saying is we should open a pizza restaurant in Paris. I think it's not a crazy idea. Maybe a chain of them. If that's what everybody's looking for to eat. Apparently so, yeah, it's a whole thing. Wow, that's, well, is that ever a way that the data gets used? Can people access that data and say, hey, here's an opportunity. We need to open a pizza restaurant in Paris.

Yeah, I think like, I mean, Google Trends Data is available. It's something you can see and anybody can use it. And I think that's like a really powerful thing. So it's really about the imagination of the people who are looking. Like I would never have thought to look for that, for instance. But, you know, I'm not, I'm not a culinary expert. So you can imagine if you have that person, you've got that knowledge and expertise, you can bring that knowledge to combine it with the search data. And yeah, it starts to get really interesting. But are there things that never change? Yeah, I mean, some things are obvious that would never change, I guess, like the weather. People always search for the weather. It's consistent. You know, or even how to tell the time and things like that. You see spiking in different places, which one of the spikes I found when I was looking for this was how to tell time drunk. Which is a real search.

How to tell time drunk? Yeah, it's a real search. Apparently the top place search for that is London, which does not surprise me at all being a Brit. But yeah, I think there are some things that are very constant and definitely a lot of those around helping and help. But also the ways we live our lives, whether it was music or parenting or pets or any of those things that are just part of all of our worlds. I just looked up how to tell time drunk on Google. It says telling time while intoxicated is difficult. Yeah, I can't talk you with that. I'm sorry.

I think I could have told you that. Well, I'm still really floored by that statistic you gave that 15% of all Google searches are brand new. It just seems like what could be left to search? This has been a fun peek behind the curtain at Google. I appreciate you sharing this. I've been talking to Simon Rogers, who's Google's data editor, and he's author of a book called What We Ask Google, a surprisingly hopeful history of humankind.

There's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Simon, great. Thanks. Oh, thanks so much for having me. It was fun. So nice people may not finish last, but they might get paid less. Newer research looking across dozens of studies has found that people who score high in agreeableness, meaning they're cooperative, polite, and easy to work with,

they tend to earn less money on average, and the pattern shows up again and again. Here's the important part. It's not that being difficult gets you paid more. It's that agreeable people are often less likely to negotiate, push back, or ask for more even when they deserve it. In other words, they're not earning less because they're less capable. They're earning less because they're trying to be nice. So the takeaway isn't to be a jerk.

it's to know that sometimes being too agreeable has a cost. And that is something you should know. Something you should know is produced by Jeff Havison, Jennifer Brennan, and the executive producer is Ken Williams. I'm Mike Hurruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, it's Hillary Frank from The Longest Shortest Time, an award-winning podcast about parenthood and reproductive health.

There is so much going on right now in the world of reproductive health and we're covering it all. Birth control, pregnancy, gender, bodily autonomy, menopause, consent, sperm, so many stories about sperm, and of course the joys and absurdities of raising kids of all ages. If you're new to the show, check out an episode called The Staircase. It's a personal story of mine about trying to get my kids school to teach sex ed. Spoiler, I get it to happen, but not at all in the way that I wanted. We also talked to plenty of non-eshoe. We also talked to plenty of non-parents so you don't have to be a parent to listen. If you like surprising, funny, poignant stories about human relationships and, you know, periods, the longest shortest time is for you.

Find us in any podcast app or at longest shortest time.com.