In One America, Guns and Diet. In the Other, Cameras and ‘Zoolander.’

NY Slimes ^ | 8/19/2014 | David Leonhardt

[mojito]

In the hardest places to live in the United States, people spend a lot of time thinking about diets and religion. In the easiest places to live, people spend a lot of time thinking about cameras.

This summer, The Upshot conducted an analysis of every county in the country to determine which were the toughest places to live, based on an index of six factors including income, education and life expectancy. Afterward, we heard from Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, who suggested looking at how web searches differ on either end of our index.

The results, based on a decade of search data, offer a portrait of the very different subjects that occupy the thoughts of richer America and poorer America....

In the hardest places to live – which include large areas of Kentucky, Arkansas, Maine, New Mexico and Oregon – health problems, weight-loss diets, guns, video games and religion are all common search topics. The dark side of religion is of special interest: Antichrist has the second-highest correlation with the hardest places, and searches containing “hell” and “rapture” also make the top 10.

To be clear, these aren’t the most common searches in our list of hardest places. They’re the searches with the highest correlation to our index. Searches on some topics, like Oprah Winfrey...are popular almost everywhere. The terms on these lists are relatively common subjects for web searches in one kind of place — and rarely a subject in the other.

In the easiest places to live, the Canon Elph and other digital cameras dominate the top of the correlation list. Apparently, people in places where life seems good, including Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming and much of the large metropolitan areas of the Northeast and West Coast, want to record their lives in images.

[mojito]

I guess this is me. I spend a lot more time thinking about the anti-Christ (like the one in the WH) and guns and ammo that the latest Canon.

The Slimes, of course, wants to play the "inequality" card, as though we'd all be a happier, better nation if we just shopped more for consumer electronics.

[98ZJ USMC]

and much of the large metropolitan areas of the Northeast and West Coast

Where life is good? At six times the cost, maybe. Keep your "life is good" areas. I have no use for them, or their Statist coercion policies and ridiculous taxes.

[MeshugeMikey]

I own and Use a Canon 5D MKII...a professional DSLR...

I had been doing a lot of searches for lenses...etc..etc relative to that camera.

as the economy continues to race downhill I decided no more shopping window or otherwise.

the Obsession with GEAR....can and has interfered with my creative endeavors more than once....but google was certainly not instrumental in my having that insight....

[zipper]

I think the best correlation to poor areas is in the sales of lottery tickets, for those places that have one (is there anywhere left that doesn’t)?

The lottery gives the poor hope, so they will spend their last dime on it instead of saving or investing. The comfortable class doesn’t ‘need’ the lottery like the poor.

The lottery is a voluntary tax on the poor.

[BlueStateRightist]

When I saw that David Leonhardt scribed this piece I stopped right there. He is a well-known “economics” journalist who carries our Marxist in Chief’s water.

[Alex Murphy]

The Upshot conducted an analysis of every county in the country to determine which were the toughest places to live, based on an index of six factors including income, education and life expectancy. Afterward, we heard from Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, who suggested looking at how web searches differ on either end of our index. The results, based on a decade of search data, offer a portrait of the very different subjects that occupy the thoughts of richer America and poorer America....

In the hardest places to live – which include large areas of Kentucky, Arkansas, Maine, New Mexico and Oregon – health problems, weight-loss diets, guns, video games and religion are all common search topics. The dark side of religion is of special interest: Antichrist has the second-highest correlation with the hardest places, and searches containing “hell” and “rapture” also make the top 10....The terms on these lists are relatively common subjects for web searches in one kind of place — and rarely a subject in the other.

In the easiest places to live, the Canon Elph and other digital cameras dominate the top of the correlation list. Apparently, people in places where life seems good, including Nebraska, Iowa, Wyoming and much of the large metropolitan areas of the Northeast and West Coast, want to record their lives in images.

[mountainbunny]

In the last I-don’t-know-how-many years, I have searched for one thing from each list.

“Dollar conversion” from the happy list, and “dog benadryl” from the sad list.

Not sure what that means.