Clown or hole: What are you most afraid of?

ADT blog shows the most common search phobia in each state. Yourlocalsecurity) Californians and Texans seem to be afraid of loopholes, Georgians are afraid of heights, and Americans seem to be really scared away by the number 13-or at least, our search history suggests this.

The security company ADT has a blog called yourlocalsecurity. In the spirit of Halloween, these bloggers decided to take a closer look at what is terrible. The method is simple: according to Scott Bay, a blogger and the company's communication expert, matching search terms with "Why am I afraid ..." He said that this result does not really show that people have real phobias. True phobia is a clinical term that needs to be diagnosed by a psychologist or psychiatrist. "Our data points come from search data, which only represent what people are searching for, not necessarily the phobias they may have (if any)," Bay told Life Science.

In order to get the data, Bay and his colleagues used the data of 2065438+September 2006 to study the trend of Google. They cross-referenced the text string "Why am I afraid" and the top 24 phobias in the United States (determined by fearof. ) [What really scares people: Top Ten Phobias]

Personal search data can't be tracked because Google Trends looks at this problem as a whole. Nevertheless, the algorithm not only reveals the overall search trend across the country, but also reveals a way to see where some terms are concentrated.

In some cases, the results are surprising-few people would guess that new york people seem to be really interested in claustrophobia and afraid of closed spaces. Half of the population lives in the densely populated city of new york, where it is relatively luxurious to have a kitchen big enough to sit down. Claustrophobia also seems to be a common search term in Florida.

Other phobias-with more exotic names-are also found in California and Texas, where the search for trypanosoma or cave phobia is the most common. Many people in Arizona are looking for a copper addiction-fear of lightning. Kentucky residents seem to have an excessive fear of commitment-phobia-which is the most common phobia searched.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first two phobias searched nationwide are triskaidekaphobia (fear of numbers 13) and xenophobia, and fear of the unknown. These two phobias are also related to foreigners and immigrants. This word is often used interchangeably, although it is not exactly the same thing. In the United States, the third most common phobia is phobia, or phobia of clowns-anyone who was traumatized at a childhood birthday party may think of this. The fourth place is trypanophobia, followed by Mediterranean phobia, or fear of the ocean.

A strange statistical fluke means that although Mediterranean phobia ranks in the top five, its concentration is not enough to show the highest phobia in any state. Clowns succeeded in Colorado and Nebraska. Xenophobia has put it at the top of the list in at least nine states: Alaska, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington State and Wisconsin. Triskaid Caphobia topped the list only in North Dakota. For California, New Mexico, Texas and Vermont, the first reaction is phobia. "KDSP" and "KDSP" Nevada people seem to be afraid of ghosts (phobias). They share this with people in Kansas, Oregon and Tennessee.

Phobia may provide some ideas for Halloween costumes in specific areas. Obviously, dressing up as a land shark will scare people in New Jersey and New Hampshire, and strong wind phobia is their most common search phobia.

Originally published in the journal Life Science.