The famous search engine “Google” issued a report on the most popular topics that people searched for in 2021, most of which were a reflection of global events, and the Corona pandemic had its impact on people’s personal attitudes and way of thinking.
The search for “negative news browsing mania” is higher in 2021 than ever before in the world. The obsession with browsing negative news is to keep reading bad news on social media and expect more of it.
Although this term has been around since 2018, searches for it increased more than ever before in January of 2021.
The events of the storming of the US Congress in the same month may have contributed to this, when thousands of supporters of former US President Donald Trump stormed the headquarters of Congress in an attempt to overturn the election result that his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, won.
And in March, the world was fascinated by the interview that talk show host Oprah Winfrey gave with Prince Harry and his wife Megan, which made it the most popular interview in the history of Google Trends.
During the interview, the couple had leveled accusations of racism against the royal family in the United Kingdom, which plunged the family into a deep crisis, and caused a sensation in the British and international media circles.
The phrase “How to help Palestine” was also one of the most popular searches around the world in May 2021, after brutal attacks launched by the Israeli police and settlers in the occupied city of Jerusalem and the “Sheikh Jarrah” neighborhood, since last April 13, following efforts to An Israeli woman evacuated 12 homes from their Palestinian owners and handed them over to settlers.
The escalation reached its climax when the Palestinian resistance factions responded to the Israeli attacks, and Israel launched a war on the Gaza Strip for 11 days, which caused the destruction of more residential buildings and hundreds of casualties, between a martyr and a wounded person.
Climate change
From megacities to tropical islands, the world searched for “climate change impact” more than ever that year, and Fiji, an archipelago of volcanic islands in the South Pacific, was the most sought-after location.
The climate conference “COP 26” – which was held last November in Glasgow, United Kingdom – witnessed several commitments on fossil fuels, which is one of the main causes of the phenomenon of climate change.
At least 19 countries – including big emitters such as the United States and Canada – and financial institutions in Glasgow have pledged to stop funding fossil energy projects that are not compatible with carbon capture regimes abroad by the end of 2022.
In another initiative promoted by the British government, more than 40 countries signed a statement to stop the use of fossil fuels, committed to the “Coal Transition Declaration to Clean Energy”, and many made similar commitments. However, large countries involved in this sector, such as Australia, China, India, the United States, Japan and Russia, were not among the signatories.
Searches for “is climate change human-caused” and “how can eating less meat help stop climate change” have become popular in the UK.
Psychological health
Beyond world events, searches for personal positive affirmations reached an all-time high worldwide that year, with “I deserve” and “I am loved” among the most searched psychological affirmations on Google. The search for “how do I take care of my mental health” has increased more than ever.
As were global searches for “Where Can I FLY?” 3 times higher in 2021 compared to levels before the Corona pandemic, and this may be due to the desire of people to search for countries that are less stringent in their measures to deal with the spread of the Corona virus.
With the local and global economies affected by the frequent closures caused by the Corona pandemic; Many companies and institutions had to lay off a number of their employees, and the search for new opportunities for entrepreneurship increased, and searches for “how to start a business” were more than searches for how to get a job.
An anomaly of the research in 2021 is that when plant lovers decided to move to new homes, they searched for “how to move with plants” more than they searched for the phrase “how to move with children” or “how to move with pets” all over the world.