A very brief look at some Google Trends I found interesting.
Please refer to Peter_Hurford’s post “Is EA Growing? EA Growth Metrics for 2018” for a more in-depth look at related data.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many others (particularly those at orgs like CEA, 80k) track or frequently look at these data in a much more comprehensive way than this, so I apologize in advance for being ignorant of redundancy and/or posting the obvious.
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Interest in “Effective Altruism” via Google Search since 2004. Note the y-axis refers to % of peak popularity, it does not reflect absolute # of search terms. Google allows you to search for “Effective Altruism” as a topic which encompasses many related search terms; this is not just the phrase effective altruism verbatim.
Interest in “Effective Altruism” in the United States, annually, from January 1, 2011 - January 1, 2020. Again note the intensity of blue does not correspond to absolute search counts, but to normalized, relative % of search.
I found this interesting because it confirms my general impression that interest in EA is greatest on the coasts. It also shows the progress that has been made since 2011! The question of where to focus efforts (double-down on hubs vs. try to spread awareness) has been discussed elsewhere and I am not an expert in that debate—but something to think about. I myself find it oddly unsatisfying that this whole diagram isn’t blue… but admit that I live in California and am not helping the situation.
Interest since 2004 can be broken down into further subregions, highlighting the expected Bay Area hub.
Looking outside the US… interest in “Effective Altruism” globally since 2004. By country, and by city.Again, the expected hotspots here. For those like jahyinginterested in growing EA in regions like Asia, Google Trends may be a nice tool to track efforts (if not already in use).
EA interest: Google Trends [fixed]
A very brief look at some Google Trends I found interesting.
Please refer to Peter_Hurford’s post “Is EA Growing? EA Growth Metrics for 2018” for a more in-depth look at related data.
I wouldn’t be surprised if many others (particularly those at orgs like CEA, 80k) track or frequently look at these data in a much more comprehensive way than this, so I apologize in advance for being ignorant of redundancy and/or posting the obvious.
---------
Interest in “Effective Altruism” via Google Search since 2004. Note the y-axis refers to % of peak popularity, it does not reflect absolute # of search terms. Google allows you to search for “Effective Altruism” as a topic which encompasses many related search terms; this is not just the phrase effective altruism verbatim.
Interest in “Effective Altruism” in the United States, annually, from January 1, 2011 - January 1, 2020. Again note the intensity of blue does not correspond to absolute search counts, but to normalized, relative % of search.
I found this interesting because it confirms my general impression that interest in EA is greatest on the coasts. It also shows the progress that has been made since 2011! The question of where to focus efforts (double-down on hubs vs. try to spread awareness) has been discussed elsewhere and I am not an expert in that debate—but something to think about. I myself find it oddly unsatisfying that this whole diagram isn’t blue… but admit that I live in California and am not helping the situation.
Interest since 2004 can be broken down into further subregions, highlighting the expected Bay Area hub.
Looking outside the US… interest in “Effective Altruism” globally since 2004. By country, and by city. Again, the expected hotspots here. For those like jahying interested in growing EA in regions like Asia, Google Trends may be a nice tool to track efforts (if not already in use).
You can play around with this yourself at: https://trends.google.com/trends/