Google Trends 1
There's something about March
In 2006, Google launched Google Trends, which provides analysis around how often a given term is searched. I thought it would be interesting to see how “napping” has trended over time, and the trend is interesting indeed.
As I eyeball this, the trend looks relatively unremarkable prior to 2016 – there are ups and downs within what looks to me like a pretty consistent band. But beginning in 2016 (and even more dramatically in 2017), we start to see prominent peaks each March – I’ve highlighted July 2022 as another peak that jumps out me as worth exploring.
So what’s going on in March?
My initial theory centers around the late Professor William Anthony, founder of the BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Sargent College. In 1999, Professor Anthony and his wife, Camille, established National Take a Nap Day on the Monday following the return of daylight savings time (always the second Sunday in March). Professor Anthony chose this day because we set our clocks ahead an hour and are more sleep-deprived than usual. My initial theory is that people read about this each March and choose to do some Googling.
This theory does face some headwinds:
NTaND has been around since 1999 – so why don’t we see this trend until 2016?
To my knowledge, the Google Doodle hasn’t shown anything about NTaND — we’ll have to work on this — so what’s prompting people to search?
I don’t think we’re done researching this one — would welcome any theories in the comments.