What kind of questions does the rest of the world wonder about Americans? Following the news of another deadly mass shooting, this time in San Bernardino, Calif., you can probably guess the answer to this question.
The autocorrect suggestions below, from different Google country pages around the world, show the most popular questions that people have about Americans. Google says its Autocomplete suggestions are generated by algorithms that reflect what other people are searching for, the content of web pages, and recent searches you have done in the past. They're not in real time, so it doesn't reflect necessarily what people are Googling this second, but it gives a good hint.
Google search records in English-speaking countries all suggest that the rest of the world is focused on America's fascination with guns. For whatever reason, the non-English results are more diverse.
Google's U.S. site:
Google U.K.:
Google France (the results read "Why did Americans enter into the first world war?" "Why do Americans speak English?" "Why do Americans have such white teeth?" and "Why don't Americans have window shutters?"):
Google Australia:
Google New Zealand:
Baidu, the biggest search engine in China, where Google is blocked and not widely used ("Why do Americans adopt Chinese children?" "Why don’t Americans eat carp?" "Why do Americans like pickup trucks?" and "Why don’t Americans save money?"):
Google Mexico ("Why are Americans racist?" "Why do Americans speak English?" Why do Americans hate the Canadians?" and "Why are people from the U.S. called 'Americans'?"):
Google Argentina shows the same results as Google Mexico above:
Google Spain ("Why are people from the U.S. called 'Americans'?" "Why do Americans hate Mexicans?" and "Why are Americans tall?"):
Google Ireland:
Google Canada:
Google India:
Max Ehrenfreund and Emily Badger contributed to this post.
See also:
-When should a shooting really be called ‘terrorism’?
-One map shows why America’s gun violence is so much worse than anywhere else
-The other mass shooting that happened today in the United States