Search Engines as Reality Checks

Professional advocates, the consultants (like me) who work with them, the reporters who cover them, and the elected officials and candidates at whom they advocate, often become our own echo chamber. We repeat the same things to each other and quickly mistake those things for reality. This is nearly inevitable – we all live and work in the same areas, socialize in the same circles, send our kids to the same schools, and so on. Everyone we know lives in our world, so we assume everyone we don’t know lives there too.

But of course few people live in our world, most live in theirs (and make the same assumptions). Everyone says “well everyone I know thinks….” As a result we can lose touch with those who don’t live in our world and on whose behalf we advocate, cover, represent and so on.
One way to conduct a quick reality check comes via Predictably Irrational. Search engines like Google, Bing and others have an auto-fill function, offering suggested searches based on words that are entered. Predictably Irrational uses this function to demonstrate the differences between what men and women search for in Google. Advocates can use it to get a peek into whether or not people online care about their issue and if so, how.

There are two parts to this check, both of which can be valuable.

First, do people know or care about your issue or candidate at all? As a baseline, type “Barack Obama is” into the search bar and look at the range of suggested searches (the Anti-Christ, communist, Muslim, Mason, etc.). “Harry Reid is” and “Nancy Pelosi is” generate similar results. But “Mitt Romney is” gets only six suggestions, two of which are Israel and Issues. As much as political professionals focus on the former Massachusetts governor and Presidential candidate (past and possibly future) the online world just doesn’t seem to care that much. “Mitch McConnell is” gets two suggestions: “issues” and “is an idiot” – this is the top Republican in the U.S. Senate. “The federal deficit is” has zero suggestions, as do most variations of “campaign finance is/campaign finance laws are/etc.”

Second, what do people think about your issue or candidate? “Global warming is” generates results that should not be shown to your children. “The death penalty is” results in a mix of suggestions, pro and con, while “gun control is” has more one-sided results (hint: “hitting your target” is one suggestion).

Using Google or Bing is not a substitute for actual research into public opinion, but it can provide a quick reality check for all of us who too easily mistake what we do, care about and think for what everyone does, cares about and thinks.