On Google, it was a year of resurfacing and learning how to move foward, return to beloved activities, and pass the time in between, according to 2021 search stats.
Google’s annual Year in Search offers a glimpse of what people around the globe were asking the search engine over the last 12 months across a dozen categories. “This year, searches for ‘how to heal’ reached an all time high,” Google Data Editor Simon Rogers wrote in a blog post.
“Coronavirus” unsurprisingly topped last year’s global trends chart, and it was still top of mind in 2021, albeit in a slightly more promising fashion. “This was the year that search interest for ‘covid vaccine’ officially surpassed interest in ‘covid testing,'” Rogers wrote. “Searches soared for ‘covid vaccine near me’ – just as people eagerly asked when they could visit their family or eat in a restaurant again.”
Globally, Google searches were dominated by sports-centric queries, with a pair of cricket matches nabbing the top two spots and the India Premier League (IPL) team coming in third place. DMX and Squid Game cracked the top 10, though, after the former tragically passed away in April, and the latter became Netflix’s most-watched show ever later in the year.
In global news trends, Afghanistan took the top spot, though three of the top five news trends revolved around cryptocurrency and meme stocks. Squid Game, of course, was the most search TV show and Alec Baldwin was both the top actor and person searched worldwide.
In the US, sports was also top of mind with “NBA” nabbing the most searches overall. The Georgia Senate race, which decided control of the Senate in January, made the top five news-related searches, as did coverage of Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial. But people had their eyes on the prize: “Mega Millions” was the most searched news topic in the US in 2021, while Dogecoin and the price of Ethereum also slipped into the top 10.
People often turn to Google with “how to be” questions, and this year, Americans were wondering about some interesting, if not predictable, things. “How to be eligible for a stimulus check” and “how to be more attractive” were the top searches, with “how to be a good boyfriend” and “how to be a baddie” making the top five.
The news never stops, so Google will add more trends as we close out 2021.
