In a time when technology is frequently blamed for fuelling division, spreading misinformation and heightening anxiety, Simon Rogers’s What We Ask Google offers an unexpected and refreshing perspective. Rather than dwelling on algorithms, artificial intelligence or the darker consequences of our digital lives, Rogers turns his attention to something profoundly human: the questions people ask when they are looking for answers, reassurance, comfort or simply someone to turn to.
As Google’s Data Editor and one of the world’s leading data journalists, Rogers has access to an extraordinary resource—the vast repository of human curiosity accumulated over more than two decades. Drawing on billions of anonymous searches, he pieces together a portrait of contemporary humanity that is at once intimate, revealing and, above all, surprisingly hopeful.
At the heart of the book lies a deceptively simple question: what do people reveal when they ask questions they would never ask another person?
The answers are remarkably universal.
Across countries, cultures and continents, people return to Google with strikingly similar concerns. They ask: Why am I so tired? What does love feel like? How do I help my child sleep? Why is grief so lonely? How can I help?
These are not questions shaped by political allegiances or ideological divides. They are questions rooted in the everyday experience of being human.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is its ability to uncover the subtle rhythms that shape ordinary life. Rogers observes that searches related to babies and sleep peak around 2 a.m., reflecting the concerns of exhausted parents searching for guidance in the middle of the night. Cookbook searches surge every December as people prepare for festive gatherings and family meals. Broader social shifts also become visible through search trends: “low calorie” overtaking “low fat” around 2013, and a rise in searches related to anxiety during the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Throughout the book, Rogers deliberately focuses on the more hopeful dimensions of these patterns. He points out that, since 2020, careers “that help people” have been searched more frequently than careers “that pay well.” He also highlights how people respond during moments of crisis. Searches often begin with attempts to understand a threat, but quickly evolve into efforts to adapt, cope and find ways to help others.
Perhaps the book’s most compelling insight is that human curiosity is often driven by empathy. Rogers repeatedly finds that people are not only searching for answers about themselves; they are also looking for ways to support those around them. Questions about helping children, comforting grieving friends, caring for pets or even protecting bees reveal a quiet instinct towards generosity—an instinct that rarely finds space in public discourse.
In many ways, What We Ask Google acts as a counterpoint to the dominant narrative of a fractured world. While headlines often emphasise conflict and division, search behaviour tells a different story. Beneath geographical, political and cultural differences lies a shared emotional landscape shaped by vulnerability, uncertainty and hope.
Rogers is particularly effective at making data feel personal. Rather than presenting search trends as cold statistics, he weaves together data analysis, storytelling, psychology and cultural observation to create a book that feels less like a technical study and more like an exploration of collective human experience.
That said, the book is not without its shortcomings. Rogers’s determination to find optimism in every pattern occasionally leads him to conclusions that feel overly generous. For example, he interprets searches such as “how often can I donate plasma” primarily as signs of altruism, when they may just as easily point to financial hardship. Likewise, a search such as “does bereavement include uncles” is treated as a question about social conventions surrounding grief rather than what could simply be a practical query about workplace leave.
These moments reveal a broader limitation: search data can tell us what people are asking, but not always why they are asking it. The motivations behind a question are often more complicated than the data alone can reveal.
Even so, these shortcomings do little to diminish the book’s larger achievement.
What We Ask Google succeeds because it redirects our attention away from technology and back towards people. It reminds us that behind every search bar is an individual seeking knowledge, reassurance, connection or understanding.
At a moment when conversations about artificial intelligence dominate public debate, Rogers offers a timely reminder that technology itself is not the central story. The real story lies with the billions of people who use it to navigate the uncertainties of everyday life.
The book also serves as an unusual social archive, documenting two decades of changing habits, shifting anxieties and evolving aspirations. In doing so, it presents a history of modern life written not by governments or institutions, but by ordinary people asking ordinary questions.
By the end, Rogers leaves readers with a quietly reassuring conclusion: despite living in a world often portrayed as deeply divided, people remain connected by common desires—to love, to care, to understand and to help one another.
What We Ask Google is insightful, engaging and thought-provoking. It may not always probe as deeply as it could, but it offers a rare and illuminating perspective on who we are when nobody is watching.
In a world saturated with noise, outrage and endless distraction, Simon Rogers has managed to uncover something both simple and profound: evidence that, beneath our differences, human beings are still searching for ways to connect.
An engaging, data-rich and unexpectedly uplifting exploration of humanity’s most honest questions—and a reminder that behind every search lies a person trying to make sense of the world.
