On twitter I saw a tweet by TED host Chris Anderson about a google trends search he has done (click on the picture or here for the online page). Chris' remark: Do these Google search trends mean the global mood is starting to lift?'I like the cleverness of this approach and maybe this indeed is an indication for an increase in optimism. What do you think?
4 comments, click here to add your comment:
I consider the antagonist of fear as being love. :)
and when you search google trends for love and fear.... well... the picture is completely different :)
Just when you think you found some reasons for optimism you discover that the reasons were there all along... tons of reasons... it is us who are blind to them. :D
Hi Peter, thanks, interesting. I checked that and with love and fear there is some resemblence in the sence that love is curling up a bit now while fear is curling down slightly (http://tinyurl.com/czjppr
). I also checked these two terms: hope and despair: http://tinyurl.com/ccckhl
Very interesting way of sampling global trends.
However, caution should be applied to inferences that can be made, on a case-by-case basis.
E.g., I might be googling "Pope message of hope" while in fact I am a pro-choice activist enraged by the Pope reiterated opposition to using condoms...
"message of hope" can be just a catchword used by the media...
just a thought,
ciao,
Paolo
Good point. In the same vein: they may have searched desperately for reasons to be hopeful because they lacked hope... mmm
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