Google had just published its annual ‘Overview Of Key Trends and Themes’, providing for all of us a somewhat dizzying reminder about everything that had transpired this 2021. Better than 2020 by a wide margin, this year felt like it only lasted a few months, as the world seemingly heals from the pandemic, and society slowly makes its way back to normal living. Google even summarizes the report in a video titled ‘Year In Search 2021’ on YouTube.

Warranting its own mini-site, Google’s 2021 Search trends include all key topics of interest, as well as news events and overall searches. Via the mini-site, listings can be sorted by region, giving visitors more specific insight as to what’s been happening in that particular area of the world.

The listings also share perspective, by virtue of search volume at the very least, on the most popular songs, sport teams, and TV shows, along with a range of other relevant and noteworthy categories.

Squid Game is on here, well what do you know, that’s a total surprise. Equally surprising is the fact that the ‘Sports Teams’ list is even populated, given pandemic circumstances and all.

Google has also provided a scrollable, month-by-month overview of the most searched terms, which, in one way or another, provides a more specific indicator as to the ‘What’ and ‘When’ of particular events. That sudden, and somewhat lengthy, Facebook outage back in October certainly drew attention (and even raised a couple of alarms for some people). That single event definitely brought to light a lot of insight, such as emphasizing the point that businesses shouldn’t solely rely and place all of their assets and faith in a single online platform.

Google also shared a key pop culture trends and moments overview, further adding to the present list of observable data. The good thing is that the report also includes key notes, making it more worthwhile to actually take a look at why items that trend are so. In a way, it does offer a newer perspective in understanding whatever is trending. On a lighter note, it also serves as a summative refresher that reminds you of what happened in the last 12 months.

The Wrap

The past 2 years (since 2020) has provided us with such a dynamic range of events and perspectives that it feels almost impossible to comprehend and decipher all that has transpired in that apparently ‘short’ timeframe. In fact, the concept of time itself seems to have been greatly condensed, as time spent staying indoors (and just indoors) seems to have made days go by incredibly fast.

Along with seemingly physics-defying effects, the pandemic has also revealed several areas where we, as a race, seem to both lack and have excess insight of, such as digital connection and the broader impacts of social media reliance. We also seem to have taken the real world for granted, only realizing the true value of what we were all once able to freely do and enjoy only when such things were taken from us. Google’s Year In Search is definitely one physiological tour, taking both our minds and bodies on a near acid-trip experience, realizing exactly how much has changed since COVID came about, and, on a hopeful note, how much things will continue to change once it subsides.

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Sources 

https://bit.ly/3yfRVwP