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Loading...Google Teaches Us What Men and Women Really Want to Know
Google may be making news because of its relationship with China right now, but there are other areas where it teaches us a great deal.
Google often appears to have the answer to everything. Even better, it now tries to answer your questions before you even ask them, with helpful suggestions that fill in the rest of your potential query. But when Google uses its knowledge of frequent searches and patterns of user behavior to decide what you are most likely to want to see, you can learn a little more about the world than you necessarily want to.
Via boing boing, by way of MNSpeak, a search of “How do I get my boyfriend/girlfriend to…” provides some drastically different results.
Those looking for advice regarding their boyfriends seem to be mostly looking for advice to enhance the emotional aspect of their relationships: proposals, more quality time, more attention, romance or affection.
For the searchers googling for girlfriend advice, the needs are more physical: sex requests, physical appearance changes. The top emotional questions appear to be about regaining emotional footage that may have been lost in the relationship (“How do I get my girlfriend to trust me/love me again?”).
“For better or for worse, Google’s obsession with collecting and refining data has given us a window into each other’s fascinating and telling curiosities,” says Dan Airley.
Or, as his first commentor best put it, “I should also add that, being a man, I find the comparison of the top suggestion in each case to be a rather depressing indictment of my kind.”
Read more: gender, gender gap, google, it, men, sex-assumptions, women, womens rights
Boing Boing
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/11/using-google-to-lear.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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40 comments
+ add your ownWho designs these poll questions? The same people who designs them for political party polls? The poll is completely meaningless, because it asks an either/or question and only gives yes/no answers as options!
Isn't it slightly over reacting? Drawing conclusions from a search engine?
Google is just showing what people are asking...that doesn't make them sexist, it makes Google users asking those questions sexist.
Seeing those questions next to each other is rather depressing.
The rating system for this and the way the question is posed is awkward. The poll needs serious re-formatting to be more clear...
I can't believe that people are still seriously looking that kind of thing up. Communication in relationships is not about manipulation.
I use the language translator on google at work.
The people using google...
Google is a great way to find info, it's the first place I go.
Why China is having such a time? What are they trying to hide from their population? That not all other countries are as bad as their leaders make them out to be? Hmmm....
I love Google! I use it all the time, more than most search engines. It's the number one search engine.
i think it`s the people using google, not google
I wouldn't say that men and women 'need' different things. I don't know any women who would forgo sex and feeling accomplished. These things are just as important to me as say relationships and feeling connected. As for watching movies, I would much rather watch an adventure movie than a romance.
News flash! Men and women are different. Therefore, they have different needs and ask for different things. End of story.
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