Our Google Searches for 2017 Show Just What a Wild Year it Was

2017 has, undoubtedly, been a challenging year. From the devastating natural disasters to Hollywood imploding after the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations and, well, Donald Trump as the President of the United States, this year has been taxing, to say the least, and our Google searches prove that.

According to Google, Canadians searched “how” questions more than ever this year. “In the past decade, searches for ‘how’ have increased by 150 per cent, hitting an all-time high this year,” says Alexandra Hunnings Klein, trends expert with Google Canada. “The ‘how’ questions ranged from how to make slime, to how to make solar eclipse glasses.”

Other “how” questions were a direct correlation to what was going on in the world this year — things like “How do wildfires start”, “How far can North Korean missiles go”, “How many refugees in the world” and “How much will the wall cost” were among the top search terms.

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But we Canadians weren’t just concerned about how things like missiles and refugees would affect us... we also wanted to know how to help those in need.

“We’ve also used ‘How to’ as global citizens, to better understand how to help our communities. Globally this year, we saw spikes around ‘how to help evacuees’ for Hurricane Harvey, the BC Wildfires, and many more,” says Hunnings Klein.

Canadians also searched for protests and movements such as “Why are women marching?" and #metoo, and were very much interested in celebrity moments, including Harvey Weinstein, the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight and, of course, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Watch the video below to see what else Canadians searched for in 2017.