Every year, Google releases a list of its Year in Search, revealing the most frequently searched terms across the world.

As is to be expected, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated discourse in 2020, with the majority of the top searched terms being related to the pandemic and local regulations.

According to South Africa’s Year in Search, it seems the most important things to South Africans in 2020 included the COVID-10 pandemic, the US elections, load shedding and, unsurprisingly, cigarettes.

Here are the top trending searches for South Africa in 2020:

  1. Coronavirus
  2. US elections update
  3. Sasol share price
  4. Level 3 lockdown South Africa
  5. Children’s Day
  6. Hantavirus
  7. Load shedding
  8. Cigarettes ban South Africa
  9. Teacher’s Day
  10. Leap Day

Spending more time at home this year, it seems people had a lot of time to think of some truly strange questions. While the top five most searched questions are understandable, the rest gives insight into a fascinating South Africa.

Here are the most searched questions of the year

  1. How to apply for an unemployment grant?
  2. Who won the election?
  3. What time is the President on tonight?
  4. What is coronavirus?
  5. What is 5G?
  6. Where does vanilla flavouring come from?
  7. Why were cornflakes invented?
  8. Where to buy beer during lockdown?
  9. Why were chainsaws invented?
  10. How to make hand sanitiser?

Remember the early stages of lockdown when everyone and their grandmother turned into a baker? It appears locals were loving the kitchen this year, and expanded their culinary prowess. Many searched for recipes to make homemade pizza, doughnuts, pineapple beer, banana loaf, and naan bread.

The Karabo Maboe cheating scandal dominated headlines this year, with the former Expresso presenter, the woman he allegedly had an affair with, Nikita Murray, and his wife Monique Muller ranking as the first, second and tenth top trending South African personalities for 2020 respectively.

The list goes:

  1. Katlego Maboe
  2. Nikita Murray
  3. Edwin Sodi
  4. Lerato Kganyago
  5. Menzi Ngubane
  6. Jackie Phamotse
  7. Tino Chinyani
  8. Sophie Ndaba
  9. Nomcebo Zikode
  10. Monique Muller

Picture: Pexels

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