How do we know what the rest of the world is thinking? Sure, you can look at the newsmedia, proceedings in the halls of Congress/Parliament/other governing body, but those sources reflect a skewed perspective – they’re coming from someone with something to sell, be it advertising or ideology.

To truly understand what people care about, what they think about on a daily basis, and the topics which they feel impact their lives, we need to understand not only what is being heard by the masses – we also need to know what they are curious about: not only what they are saying, but what they want to learn.

But learning is a risky business. There has always been a human tendency to avoid asking questions of others, be it in the classroom, the workplace or other social situations: the act of asking a question implies a lack of knowledge, which may diminish social standing, placing them in a “one-down” situation (this is particularly evident in interactions between men; see You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen for a clear, concise, non-judgemental elaboration).

However, now that we can ask our questions of our computers, which pose a minimal threat to our social standing, we are free to ask any question we like without fear of judgement. As such, we are free to learn about all those things which may interest us – those topics concerning our financial well-being, or social needs and sexual curiosities – without fear of judgement or retribution.

Historically, it would be nearly impossible to obtain large datasets which reflect what people think, feel, and wonder about on the meager funding available for most social sciences research… but thanks to the propensity of human curiosity, those of us who study social phenomena and language have a new set of incredibly powerful tools at our disposal. And while blogs and twitter feeds are undoubtedly powerful resources for investigation into social phenomena, query trends from internet search engines have the potential to be an even more powerful tool.

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