What Do We Ask Google, and What Does It Tell Us About Human Nature? With Simon Rogers

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. 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 data set, billions of searches carried out over two decades to provide a revealing portrait of our collective brain.

If social media is where we perform, Rogers says, our search data is a more honest reflection of our interests, offering a window into humanity's endless gift for curiosity. 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 now casting, and how our search data can anticipate future trends. Let's join our host Carl Miller now with more. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, everyone. I'm Carl Miller and our guest today is Simon Rogers.

I think I first came across Simon's work when he was data editor at The Guardian. He was doing all of these amazing visualizations and then he wrote a book which I think is still on my coffee table called Facts Are Sacred back in back in 2013. He's a co-host of the data journalism podcast, but what we're here talking about today is his new book, What We Ask Google. Insights, I think you say Simon from the world's largest data set, billions and billions of Google searches, where he is now also data editor. Simon, very warm welcome.

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