The most searched term of the four we looked at is ‘what is a ghost’. While it doesn’t necessarily suggest a jump in suspected sightings, it does demonstrate that people are extra-interested in the nature of paranormal beings at the moment. Either way, searches for this term jumped in the third week of March.

This spike in ghoulish searches coincided with millions around the world being asked to stay indoors as much as possible, but what’s the link?

Well, more time at home means more time to spend with your ghosts. Sorry, we mean to notice odd things you’d never picked up on before. What is that noise? Did something just run through the garden? Does the central heating always sound like that?

Paranormal or not, clearly something got people researching ghosts throughout lockdown. What’s most interesting is the change in searches over the last couple of weeks.

First, ‘what is a ghost’ searches have started to fall. Instead, we see searches that more strongly imply interest in the existence of ghosts rising. ‘Are ghosts real’ sounds like a question you’d ask to reassure yourself that a bump in the attic isn’t a ghoul. Meanwhile, ‘saw a ghost’ and ‘how to get rid of ghosts’ suggest people are both believing in ghosts and experiencing ghostly behavior.

We decided to turn to social data to see if we could find out more. We set up a query looking for mentions specifically of seeing ghosts. Here’s what we found.

We can see the social data matches the search data, with a rise in mid-March which has remained pretty high since. Compared to last year, the March to May period saw 30% more people reporting ghost sightings on social media.

Something tells us the people who searched ‘what is a ghost’ in March weren’t just prompted by a random interest in the macabre. Clearly, many went to Google after believing they’d seen a ghost.

We’re not suggesting ghosts are real, but there’s something about this time that’s making us, as humans, experience things differently and relating those things to the paranormal.

We should also note the recent drop off on May 28, lasting until June 7. It kind of looks like ghosts took some time off, but there’s another more likely explanation.

We can’t be 100% sure, but this drop off occurred just as Black Lives Matter protests took off again in the US, and went on to spread around the world. This tallies with our previous reporting that shows people are focused on the protests and associated conversations, and are therefore less likely to post about other topics.

Sports bettors are trying their hands at the stock market

Online brokerages have seen a record number of new accounts created this year, and the big four (E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, and Fidelity Investors) have executed as many trades in March and April as they did in the whole first quarter of 2019. But what, and who, is driving this trend?

Google Trends data shows how popular investing has become during lockdown. Robinhood is a commission-free investment app that’s the hottest on the market. Google search interest in the app peaked in the first week of March.

Marc Ribinstein, newsletter writer of Net Interest, wrote: “43% of North American men ages 25-34 … who watch sports also bet on sports at least once per week, and that’s the same group that’s flocked to Robinhood.”

Using our Consumer Research platform, we investigated English-language mentions of sports betting and daily trading on social media from January 2017 to May 2020 to understand if consumer behavior is chiming with Ribinstein’s theory.

Compared to the three months prior, conversation about betting between March and April fell by 12% and mentions of daily trading increased by 26%. These stats certainly suggest Ribinstein is on to something when they claim that people are swapping from sports to stocks.

Many people have had to adapt to new hobbies to replace those that aren’t possible to partake in under lockdown. For sports fans, filling their time with bets on the stock market or penny stocks is an easy way to get a similar thrill to sports betting. It will be interesting to see if new investors from sports betting stick to it, but only time will tell.

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Brandwatch Response Team