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Welcome to episode #1047 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation).
Simon Rogers has spent his career turning data into stories that help us better understand the world... and ourselves. A former news editor at The Guardian, where he founded and edited its influential Datablog, Simon is now the Data Editor at Google, working with Google Trends, one of the largest publicly accessible datasets of human curiosity and behaviour ever created. He is also the co-host of The Data Journalism Podcast and a longtime advocate for open data, visualization and making complex information meaningful. His new book, What We Ask Google - A Surprisingly Hopeful History Of Humankind, explores what billions of searches reveal about our private fears, shared vulnerabilities, cultural obsessions and desire to help one another. In this episode, Simon discusses why search offers a uniquely intimate portrait of humanity... not the carefully curated version we present on social media, but the questions we ask when we genuinely need answers. He explains how searches surrounding grief, friendship, parenting, health and crisis reveal that people are often far less alone than they feel, and perhaps more compassionate than our public discourse suggests. We also explore Google Trends as a cultural and predictive signal, the communities formed through shared curiosity, and why being surrounded by data does not necessarily make us more insightful. Simon reflects on how AI is changing the language and complexity of our searches without fundamentally changing what humans want to know. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of search as a collective stream of consciousness... chaotic, vulnerable, curious and surprisingly hopeful. Enjoy the conversation...
- Running time: 53:45.
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- Here is my conversation with Simon Rogers.
- What We Ask Google - A Surprisingly Hopeful History Of Humankind.
- The Data Journalism Podcast.
- Datablog.
- Google Trends.
- Follow Simon on X.
- Follow Simon on Bluesky.
- Follow Simon on LinkedIn.
Chapters:
(00:00) - The Role of a Data Editor. (02:47) - Exploring Optimism Through Data. (05:57) - Understanding Human Connection Through Search. (09:05) - Cultural Reflections in Search Trends. (11:59) - The Intimacy of Search Queries. (15:08) - The Power of Data Visualization. (17:57) - Shifts in Search Behavior During Covid. (21:05) - The Complexity of Community and Connection. (23:57) - Echo Chambers and Misinformation. (27:06) - Predictive Power of Search Data. (28:19) - AI's Impact on Search Behavior. (33:28) - Understanding AI Integration in Search. (36:12) - Data Richness vs. Insightfulness. (39:01) - The Art of Data Storytelling. (41:25) - Search Behavior and Societal Reflections. (44:16) - Loneliness and Connection in Search Data. (45:39) - The Future of AI and Search Engines.
