4 ms·

I'm glad this was written and has more historical examples than just Brexit. I could imagine a good portion of the questions could be originating from students

by Smerity 10y ago

I'm glad this was written and has more historical examples than just Brexit. I could imagine a good portion of the questions could be originating from students. If a large political or economic event happens, it's not unlikely for classrooms teachers to task their students to understand what's happening. Search is the obvious first step for that. Even more broadly, and in line with the article, extrapolating from a single coarse data point is a Bad Idea™.

danielweber 10y ago
If you start with the assumption that your enemies are stupid, you won't have much trouble finding the evidence.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  True. Also, if Google Trends were for some reason down for the last weekend, journalists would keep looking for "evidence" of stupidity until they found something else.
- venomsnake 10y ago
  That also is a great way to lose a political battle. What I observe right now after the Brexit vote is the absolute conviction that brexit happened because the fact that it is xenophobic was just not explained clearly enough and the "stupid" brexiter just did not get it.
CydeWeys 10y ago
Forget students even, I'm an adult with a compulsive information-seeking habit, as I suspect a lot of other HN readers are. I know who Harriet Tubman is, but I don't know all there is to know about her, so on the date that her $20 bill debut was announced I Googled her and read parts of her Wikipedia article, the same way I am constantly doing for all sorts of current event topics. How can wanting to learn more possibly be demonized? Would we rather have a situation where a big influential vote affecting the future of an entire nation comes up and no one does any research about it?
- Smerity 10y ago
  My specific comment re: students was in reference to the perpetuation of "people who were searching 'what is the EU' have already voted on Brexit". That falsely assumed that those searches were from people who had already voted on the topic, suggesting lack of proper background information for such an important decision. Young students are a group who may likely search for this information after the vote when it had a major impact on their country as before the vote it wasn't necessarily important for them to have detailed knowledge about it. I'd hope we would never penalize someone for trying to get background information, no matter how "simple", before making an important decision, regardless of whether they're a student or an adult. To an even broader point, imposter syndrome is hard enough when you just feel like you're behind on your fundamentals, let alone when you are actually behind on your fundamentals. Improving yourself should never be stigmatized.
- jpeterman 10y ago
  The only really valid part of the linked article is the point about how you can't make sweeping generalizations based on a very small sample size and a (relatively) small trend. Concluding that people probably know what the EU is while searching very specifically using the phrase "What is the EU" is no more accurate or truthful than concluding that they don't know what the EU is. The author says at one point, "perhaps we can more likely conclude". Perhaps we can. But perhaps we shouldn't make any conclusions and just stick to the thesis that the press should know better when reporting facts?
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    Agreed. That's how to do sensible searching. I didn't know how exit would happen via "Article 50", so I couldn't search for that term. This election cycle has demonstrated that Google is acting politically, not a neutral repository with great search tools.
  - mcbits 10y ago
    True, the article gives no basis to conclude that people searching "what is the EU" already know what it is, but it seems like a fair default position. I might search "history of the EU" or "Mitt Romney bio" to get a certain kind of content outside of current events and gossip. I could also see other people with similar (limited, but much greater than 0) knowledge searching "what is the EU" or "who is Mitt Romney" for exactly the same reasons. The less clueless-sounding queries have spikes on Google Trends that appear very correlated with the "who is"/"what is" spikes, for what it's worth.

by Smerity 10y ago

danielweber 10y ago

If you start with the assumption that your enemies are stupid, you won't have much trouble finding the evidence.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
True. Also, if Google Trends were for some reason down for the last weekend, journalists would keep looking for "evidence" of stupidity until they found something else.
venomsnake 10y ago
That also is a great way to lose a political battle. What I observe right now after the Brexit vote is the absolute conviction that brexit happened because the fact that it is xenophobic was just not explained clearly enough and the "stupid" brexiter just did not get it.

CydeWeys 10y ago

Forget students even, I'm an adult with a compulsive information-seeking habit, as I suspect a lot of other HN readers are. I know who Harriet Tubman is, but I don't know all there is to know about her, so on the date that her $20 bill debut was announced I Googled her and read parts of her Wikipedia article, the same way I am constantly doing for all sorts of current event topics. How can wanting to learn more possibly be demonized? Would we rather have a situation where a big influential vote affecting the future of an entire nation comes up and no one does any research about it?

Smerity 10y ago
My specific comment re: students was in reference to the perpetuation of "people who were searching 'what is the EU' have already voted on Brexit". That falsely assumed that those searches were from people who had already voted on the topic, suggesting lack of proper background information for such an important decision. Young students are a group who may likely search for this information after the vote when it had a major impact on their country as before the vote it wasn't necessarily important for them to have detailed knowledge about it. I'd hope we would never penalize someone for trying to get background information, no matter how "simple", before making an important decision, regardless of whether they're a student or an adult. To an even broader point, imposter syndrome is hard enough when you just feel like you're behind on your fundamentals, let alone when you are actually behind on your fundamentals. Improving yourself should never be stigmatized.
jpeterman 10y ago
The only really valid part of the linked article is the point about how you can't make sweeping generalizations based on a very small sample size and a (relatively) small trend. Concluding that people probably know what the EU is while searching very specifically using the phrase "What is the EU" is no more accurate or truthful than concluding that they don't know what the EU is. The author says at one point, "perhaps we can more likely conclude". Perhaps we can. But perhaps we shouldn't make any conclusions and just stick to the thesis that the press should know better when reporting facts?
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Agreed. That's how to do sensible searching. I didn't know how exit would happen via "Article 50", so I couldn't search for that term. This election cycle has demonstrated that Google is acting politically, not a neutral repository with great search tools.
- mcbits 10y ago
  True, the article gives no basis to conclude that people searching "what is the EU" already know what it is, but it seems like a fair default position. I might search "history of the EU" or "Mitt Romney bio" to get a certain kind of content outside of current events and gossip. I could also see other people with similar (limited, but much greater than 0) knowledge searching "what is the EU" or "who is Mitt Romney" for exactly the same reasons. The less clueless-sounding queries have spikes on Google Trends that appear very correlated with the "who is"/"what is" spikes, for what it's worth.