COVID-19 PANDEMİSİ VE ÖNCESİNDE HALKIN FARKLI DUYGU DURUM İFADELERİNE İLGİSİNİN GOOGLE TRENDLER ÜZERİNDEN ANALİZİ
ANALYSIS OF PUBLIC INTEREST IN DIFFERENT EMOTIONAL STATE EXPRESSIONS DURING AND BEFORE THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC USING GOOGLE TRENDS

Summary/Abstract: The main objective of this study is to examine whether there is a statistically significant difference in the public's interest in different emotional expressions during and before the Covid-19 pandemic. Data for the study was obtained from Google Trends, a publicly available database. The pre-pandemic period was set from March 2019-2020, and the pandemic period was set from March 2020-2021. 25 search terms related to emotional expressions were scanned, and searches were focused in Turkey across all categories. Student's t-test was used for data analysis collected between February 20-23, 2023. The top three search terms with the highest average search volume during the pre-pandemic period were "death" (81.6), "anxiety" (79.0), and "depression" (74.4), respectively. During the pandemic period, the top three were "hallucination" (66.9), "anxiety" (64.9), and "anger" (54.9), respectively. It was found that the search frequencies of the terms "melancholy", "uncertainty", "paranoia", and "hallucination" on Google increased significantly (p 0.05) during the Covid-19 pandemic period. Surprisingly, it was also found that the average search frequencies of the terms "anxiety", "depression", "stress", "panic attack", "anxiousness", "suicide", "fear", "death", "loneliness", "obsession", "despair", and "boredom" also significantly increased (p 0.05) before the Covid-19 pandemic. These findings highlight the need for interventions to address the mental health consequences of the pandemic, and demonstrate the usefulness of Google Trends as a tool for monitoring public interest in emotional expressions.

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