What do our Google searches reveal about who we really are?

For a new book, What We Ask Google, data analyst Simon Rogers explores the world’s biggest dataset - billions of searches carried out over two decades - to provide a revealing portrait of our collective brain.

In this episode, he speaks to Carl Miller about what the data reveals—from how we process grief and loneliness, to how we seek to understand our health, to “nowcasting” and how our search data can anticipate future trends. Along the way, he uncovers some unexpected cultural trends: in Paris, the most searched-for food is pizza; in the UK, parents look for children’s parkour classes, while in the US, it’s etiquette and croquet. If social media is where we perform, he says, our search data is a more honest reflection of our interests, offering a window into humanity's endless gift for curiosity.

Simon Rogers is Google’s Data Editor. What We Ask Google is available online and in stores now.

Carl Miller is an author and researcher at Demos.