1. Read Stephens-Davidowitz (2014) and understand how the author used Google's search records to measure racial animus in the United States. Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the measure.
2. Play around with Google Trends to see what functionalities it offers and try to figure out Google's methodology by checking out information that Google publicly releases (such as its FAQ page).
3. Then, consider the following scenario:
You were asked to conduct a study on how the U.S. public's attitude toward mask-wearing varies across regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. You thought maybe you could obtain some good measurements by making use of Google's search records. How would you construct your measure(s)? What search queries (or combination of search queries) would you use? What research question(s) does your measure best answer? (i.e. what public attitude/interest does your query exactly measure?) What does it NOT measure? What are possible measurement errors and biases?