5 ms·

Investigating sine waves in Google Trends

29 points by emmett 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
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gojomo 17y ago
Cold and flu season: head congestion, medications which may affect the ears. To test weather-based theories: compare northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere search trends. (Unfortunately, there's not enough search traffic on [ringing ears] in southern-hemisphere english-speaking regions to be sure... though the thin Australia data is vaguely consistent with the idea their highest traffic is mid-year.)
- peregrine 17y ago
  Whenever I get bad sinus/ear infections during winter my ears ring.The ears/face are very closely related and a simple cold/flu can spark an infection.
aristus 17y ago
Another interesting one is pi: http://www.google.com/trends?q=pi http://www.google.com/trends?q=pi Ignore the spike near 14 March and look at the log low dip in summer and the sharp upslope in August-September. Other very seasonal queries: http://www.google.com/trends?q=mushrooms http://www.google.com/trends?q=mushrooms Also, for some reason, "DYI", "pi", and "horses" all had large spikes around the end of 2007. Anyone want to guess why? Data gremlins? http://www.google.com/trends?q=diy%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=diy%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=horses%2Cdyi%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=horses%2Cdyi%2Cpi
- diabolical 17y ago
  March 14 is Pi day.
- chengmi 17y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the "pi" trend correlates well with vacation times in academia.
  - aristus 17y ago
    Sure, but are school curricula really that well coordinated across the english-speaking world? I'm kind of surprised that the graphs match so well: http://www.google.com/trends?q=natural+logarithm%2Cbase+10%2Cdirac http://www.google.com/trends?q=natural+logarithm%2Cbase+10%2... http://www.google.com/trends?q=hamlet%2Csocrates%2Ctruman http://www.google.com/trends?q=hamlet%2Csocrates%2Ctruman
    - chengmi 17y ago
      We may be reading too much into this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10%2Cdirac%2Ccheerios&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10%2Cdirac%2Ccheerios&#3...
      - pygy 17y ago
        Yes, but : http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10,dirac,+wrist+band&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10,dirac,+wrist+band&#38... This is a US specific plot, but the world wide one is similar. There are plausible explainations for a correlation between the type of breakfast and the school cycle. The spike at the end of 2007 appears for any queries when you look at the world-wide data.
robotrout 17y ago
Fun stuff! Yes, it seems to correlate to "runny nose" http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cringing%20ears&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cring... ... and in Australia, both seem to peak in the July time period, as expected. http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cringing%20ears&geo=AU&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cring...
deleted 17y ago
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neilk 17y ago
I looked up the causes of tinnitus to see if they were cyclical too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus#Causes_of_subjective_tinnitus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus#Causes_of_subjective_t... "Ear infection" has a similar pattern. Although there I'm baffled by the huge spike exactly at Christmas followed by nothing in January. http://www.google.com/trends?q=ear+infection&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=ear+infection&ctab=0&... Tinnitus is sometimes caused by depression. Depression can be seasonal, and there's another vaguely cyclical graph that follows the seasons of the Northern Hemisphere. Spiking in the months after Christmas (bills) and another big one in late spring / early summer (student exams?) and then the onset of winter. There's a big reduction over the summer, and interestingly, a negative spike right at Christmas. Lately, there might be some confounding searches for economic depression -- at least that's how I interpret the latter half of 2008. http://www.google.com/trends?q=depression&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=depression&ctab=0&geo...
- pygy 17y ago
  Stress and depression are also strongly correlated with religion, but less so with God or prayer. There's a drop in the searches for religion around christmas... http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+stress,+depression&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+stress,+depression&... Notice also the spike in stress and depression searches around Romney's speech on religion, we'll come to that later on. - It's even more interesting if you look at it region per region. * US: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... * UK: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=gb&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... * Australia: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=au&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... There are different patterns in all three regions, but the correlation holds. I took shoulder as a neutral term, to be sure the variations were not related to some global trend in search volume. - Surpisingly, though, the Romney speech spike is bigger in worldwide queries than in US specific ones. At the world scale, the spike is also very correlated with feet, flower and shoulder... It's not the case in the US... And the Romney spike is much smaller when compared to the average frequency of each term. * World: http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoul... * US: http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=us&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoul... Do you have any idea of what happened worldwide in November 2007? Is it a Google bug? Or was there an overall spike in search queries at that point?
ralph 17y ago
"job search": http://www.google.com/trends?q=job+search&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=job+search&ctab=0&geo... Interesting dip come December and then a spurt that more than makes up for it in January. New year, new job?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

29 points by emmett 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

Cold and flu season: head congestion, medications which may affect the ears. To test weather-based theories: compare northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere search trends. (Unfortunately, there's not enough search traffic on [ringing ears] in southern-hemisphere english-speaking regions to be sure... though the thin Australia data is vaguely consistent with the idea their highest traffic is mid-year.)

peregrine 17y ago
Whenever I get bad sinus/ear infections during winter my ears ring.The ears/face are very closely related and a simple cold/flu can spark an infection.

aristus 17y ago

Another interesting one is pi: http://www.google.com/trends?q=pi http://www.google.com/trends?q=pi Ignore the spike near 14 March and look at the log low dip in summer and the sharp upslope in August-September. Other very seasonal queries: http://www.google.com/trends?q=mushrooms http://www.google.com/trends?q=mushrooms Also, for some reason, "DYI", "pi", and "horses" all had large spikes around the end of 2007. Anyone want to guess why? Data gremlins? http://www.google.com/trends?q=diy%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=diy%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=horses%2Cdyi%2Cpi http://www.google.com/trends?q=horses%2Cdyi%2Cpi

diabolical 17y ago
March 14 is Pi day.
chengmi 17y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the "pi" trend correlates well with vacation times in academia.
- aristus 17y ago
  Sure, but are school curricula really that well coordinated across the english-speaking world? I'm kind of surprised that the graphs match so well: http://www.google.com/trends?q=natural+logarithm%2Cbase+10%2Cdirac http://www.google.com/trends?q=natural+logarithm%2Cbase+10%2... http://www.google.com/trends?q=hamlet%2Csocrates%2Ctruman http://www.google.com/trends?q=hamlet%2Csocrates%2Ctruman
  - chengmi 17y ago
    We may be reading too much into this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10%2Cdirac%2Ccheerios&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10%2Cdirac%2Ccheerios&#3...
    - pygy 17y ago
      Yes, but : http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10,dirac,+wrist+band&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=base+10,dirac,+wrist+band&#38... This is a US specific plot, but the world wide one is similar. There are plausible explainations for a correlation between the type of breakfast and the school cycle. The spike at the end of 2007 appears for any queries when you look at the world-wide data.

robotrout 17y ago

Fun stuff! Yes, it seems to correlate to "runny nose" http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cringing%20ears&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cring... ... and in Australia, both seem to peak in the July time period, as expected. http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cringing%20ears&geo=AU&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=runny%20nose%2Cring...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

neilk 17y ago

I looked up the causes of tinnitus to see if they were cyclical too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus#Causes_of_subjective_tinnitus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus#Causes_of_subjective_t... "Ear infection" has a similar pattern. Although there I'm baffled by the huge spike exactly at Christmas followed by nothing in January. http://www.google.com/trends?q=ear+infection&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=ear+infection&ctab=0&... Tinnitus is sometimes caused by depression. Depression can be seasonal, and there's another vaguely cyclical graph that follows the seasons of the Northern Hemisphere. Spiking in the months after Christmas (bills) and another big one in late spring / early summer (student exams?) and then the onset of winter. There's a big reduction over the summer, and interestingly, a negative spike right at Christmas. Lately, there might be some confounding searches for economic depression -- at least that's how I interpret the latter half of 2008. http://www.google.com/trends?q=depression&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=depression&ctab=0&geo...

pygy 17y ago
Stress and depression are also strongly correlated with religion, but less so with God or prayer. There's a drop in the searches for religion around christmas... http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+stress,+depression&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+stress,+depression&... Notice also the spike in stress and depression searches around Romney's speech on religion, we'll come to that later on. - It's even more interesting if you look at it region per region. * US: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... * UK: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=gb&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... * Australia: http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=au&geor=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=stress,+depression,+religion,... There are different patterns in all three regions, but the correlation holds. I took shoulder as a neutral term, to be sure the variations were not related to some global trend in search volume. - Surpisingly, though, the Romney speech spike is bigger in worldwide queries than in US specific ones. At the world scale, the spike is also very correlated with feet, flower and shoulder... It's not the case in the US... And the Romney spike is much smaller when compared to the average frequency of each term. * World: http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoul... * US: http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoulder&ctab=0&geo=us&date=all&sort=1 http://www.google.com/trends?q=religion,+feet,+flower,+shoul... Do you have any idea of what happened worldwide in November 2007? Is it a Google bug? Or was there an overall spike in search queries at that point?

ralph 17y ago

"job search": http://www.google.com/trends?q=job+search&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0 http://www.google.com/trends?q=job+search&ctab=0&geo... Interesting dip come December and then a spurt that more than makes up for it in January. New year, new job?

deleted 17y ago

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