Fun with Google Trends

Here I am, studying for exams and google has to launch its highly addictive and distracting Google Trends . Andrew Sullivan has the scoop on who is doing the most net searches for "sex": mostly people in conservative, Middle-Eastern countries.

Naturally, this neat tool is completely unscientific but still offers a glimpse of what people around the world are browsing on the internet. With more sexually related searches, the pattern repeats: those in relatively conservative localities win out by far. The top four cities for searches on "pornography" are Delhi, Chennai, Salt Lake City and Mumbai. By this standard, Delhi is the smut capital of the world! No wonder there are so many cybercafes there. Salt Lake City puts in a strong showing considering its puny size (not to mention conservative, Mormon ethos) in comparison to these enormous Indian cities.

Finally, net searches for "gay" or "homosexual" are pretty revealing as well. Latin American countries are overrepresented with Chile getting the number one spot. I have no first-hand knowledge of this part of the world but friends from there have told me that male homosexuality is far more stigmatized there than in Western Europe or North America.

I could go on but I encourage you, dear reader, to spend countless hours doing searches of your own.