Sep 1, 2026 · 36 min · 18 segments
Google processes billions of searches every day, and the data behind the searches say a lot about us. The data analysis presents fascinating insights not just for social science, but for every person…
Simon RogersGuest
Will HuttonHost
I'm tempted to ask you, and if you think it's a kind of damn silly question, you can push back.
But what's the most arresting fact or series of facts that you want to lay out in front of us?
But the things that really emerged to me, and it wasn't... me going in and deciding this was going to be the structure of the book.
We need help with everything, whether it is how to tie a tie or how to boil an egg.
You know, there is a crisis of loneliness out there in the world, and I think people often feel like they're the only person in a given situation.
But what you see is that there are millions of other people in the same situation.
And the third thing that emerges, and possibly the most important, is that people genuinely want to help each other.
You can see this desire to help whenever there's a crisis in the world and people respond by wanting to do something about it.
Searches for how to help are higher now than at any time in Google Trends history.
I didn't go into it trying to write that book, but they really came out once I started looking at the data in that way.
I'm tempted to ask you, and if you think it's a kind of damn silly question, you can push back.
But what's the most arresting fact or series of facts that you want to lay out in front of us?
But the things that really emerged to me, and it wasn't... me going in and deciding this was going to be the structure of the book.
We need help with everything, whether it is how to tie a tie or how to boil an egg.
You know, there is a crisis of loneliness out there in the world, and I think people often feel like they're the only person in a given situation.
But what you see is that there are millions of other people in the same situation.
And the third thing that emerges, and possibly the most important, is that people genuinely want to help each other.
You can see this desire to help whenever there's a crisis in the world and people respond by wanting to do something about it.
Searches for how to help are higher now than at any time in Google Trends history.
I didn't go into it trying to write that book, but they really came out once I started looking at the data in that way.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.