Some of the weirdest things people have asked Google

Actress Keira Knightly was not wrong when she said that she can “see the world through my eyes, and it’s sometimes a strange world”. Just as the sentence makes as much sense as a fish on land, so do some of the bizarre searches that people turn to Google to answer. In a keyword analysis with a handful of other interrogative words, some bizarre questions are revealed.

Some of the top “why” questions commonly asked of the cyber gods include “why are manholes round” and “why is the sky blue”. Others want to know “why are people so selfish” and “why is it called Bluetooth.” Well, if these are questions that keep you up at night, here are some answers, courtesy of Google.

Website Mentalfloss answers the manhole problem. It says that“manholes are round because it is the best shape to resist the compression of Earth around it. Round shapes are easier to manufacture than square or rectangular shapes, and because manhole covers are heavy, being round makes them easier to move from place to place (just roll them!).” And this is why the sky is blue, says the top ranking answer from the Scientific American: “As sunlight of all colours passes through air, the blue part causes charged particles to oscillate faster than does the red part. … More of the sunlight entering the atmosphere is blue than violet, however, and our eyes are somewhat more sensitive to blue light than to violet light, so the sky appears blue.”

People are so selfish because “Selfish people sometimes fear or resent doing more for others because they feel it can impede their own needs,” is your answer, courtesy of Global News. The handy connection between your mobile device and Smart TV is called Bluetooth because it “is named after a 10th-century Scandinavian king. Harald “Blatand” Gormsson was a Viking king who ruled Denmark and Norway from the year 958 until 985.” This answer, with thanks to the folks at the Economic Times.

Birth control efficacy is closely flanked by queries of knowing whether you’re pregnant or not. Picture Google Screengrab

But these are still tame. In a few key word checks a lot of people seem somewhat paranoid about the murderous intentions of their domestic cats. “My Cat Wants to Kill Me” comes up tops when asking Google about what felines want. The answer, a USA Today story about a study that says “if you ever thought your cat was anxious, insecure, tense, suspicious or aggressive toward you, you aren’t making it up, he said. If they were bigger, they probably would consider killing you.”

When asking the universe, aka Google, “How Do I Know If” it ends your sentence for you with some interesting results. At the top, people want to know how they would know when the birth control method known as Depo-Privera is working. The second and third most asked questions were, not surprisingly, “How do I know if I am pregnant.”

It also seems as if we are all self-obsessed, and not in the most constructive way. While Siri may not want to answer, Google shares the top searches that complete the sentence “Am I a…”. First up is the “Am I A Joke” meme followed by questions a psychologist may be more qualified to answer. “Am I a narcissist” and “am I a bad/toxic person” rank quite high. Scarily though is that the “Am I a Psychopath Quiz” is third on the list of searched for questions. Click on it and take your pick of a ton of quizzes to establish whether you are the next Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. You can even take a quiz to help you figure out whether you are more of a sociopath than a psychopath or vice versa.

Burning questions like Am I a Psychopath keep people up at night. Picture Google Screengrab

This may be why one of the continuing trending searches answers life’s burning question on whether ‘babies are dishwasher safe’. It feels like an urban legend and reads like a Stephen King novel’s opening paragraph. Thankfully, the world has not gone totally insane. Turns out though that this may be a twenty first century literacy challenge as what it seems folk mean when they ask Google this, is what baby stuff can be safely washed by machine, and not in the sink.