The York Research Database

This paper investigates how the world uses Google, the most popular search engine, to look for information about the “Internet” as well as two symptoms of emotional well-being, namely, “anxiety” and “happiness.” Data corresponding to 202 countries were collected for a period of five years from 2013 to 2017 using Google Trends, a free surveillance tool that reports data from the search engine. The search volume of “Internet” was positively correlated with that of “anxiety” as well as “happiness.” Furthermore, the paper analysed if the search volumes correlated with actual emotional well-being measured using the World Happiness Index provided by the United Nations (UN), and the Life Satisfaction Index provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The search volume of “anxiety” showed positive correlations with both the indices. The results are discussed, and new directions for future research are identified.