When faced with a question or obstacle in life, odds are you’ve turned to Google for guidance once, twice, or maybe a few hundred times.
Well, thanks to a new website created by Google’s News Lab and visual data journalist Xaquin G.V., you can take comfort in knowing you’re not alone in your frantic and somewhat embarrassing searches.
The website, called how-to-fix-a-toilet.com, compiles data from 100 of the most popular “How to” searches typed into Google’s search engine worldwide, giving users the option to filter the inquiries by location to gain a better understanding of trends.
Simply type in a location, such as the United States, into the site’s search bar and upon doing so, an interactive picture of a semi-furnished home interior appears. The bigger an item or appliance is shown in the picture, the more it’s been searched for. Seems like it takes a lot of people searching to change a lightbulb.
The site goes on to share other popular searches about everything from how to cook certain types of food or master the world of romance to the age old question: “how to tie a tie?”
In the various categories it seems people around the world are most curious about how to properly make pancakes, how to make money (of course), how to lose weight, and how to kiss. Yeah, really.
As for his inspiration behind expressing this visual data, Xaquin admitted he’s a major “How to” search offender himself.
“We looked at what things we need the most help with around the house, from the simplest how-to-fit-a-bulb kind of fixes, to those fixes for which we know we need a professional, but our ego makes us take upon ourselves to at least try,” he wrote.
But hey, clicking on any of the subjects conveniently takes you to the official Google search results page, so you can put your egos aside and start learning how to complete these commonly questioned skills yourself.
