Dr. Google Will See You Now

By SETH STEPHENS-DAVIDOWITZ, NYT

FEELING good today? You are not alone. We’re approaching Aug. 11, which is, excluding Christmastime, the happiest day of the year in this country. Or at least the day with the lowest rate of depression, according to our Google searches.

I recently explored what Google searches tell us about depression, by which I mean, loosely, dips in mood. Using anonymous, aggregate data from tens of millions of queries, I measured what proportion of searches included the word “depression” and were categorized by Google’s algorithms as health related on each day of the year, across the United States, over a period of nine years. (This method counts searches like “depression symptoms” and “depression treatment” but not searches like “The Great Depression.”) Not every health-related search using “depression” is a sign that someone is depressed, and not everyone who is depressed queries Google. But thanks to the incredibly large sample size, meaningful patterns emerge.

According to the data, depression is highest in April. T. S. Eliot was probably right to call it “the cruelest month.” Depression is lowest in August. (A team of researchers led by John Ayers of San Diego State University first showed that Google searches related to many mental illnesses vary with the season.)

The state with the highest rate of depression is North Dakota; the one with the lowest, Virginia. The city with the highest rate is Presque Isle, Me.; the city with the lowest, San Francisco. Depression is, unsurprisingly, highest on Mondays and lowest on Saturdays. The date on which depression is lowest is Dec. 25, followed by a few days surrounding it.

(More here.)