Google has betrayed us — here are our biggest fears based on what we search

It’s only four days until Halloween, and we’re thinking about our biggest fears. Zombies, vampires, ghouls — all those are spooky, but what about the real life ones, like drowning, heights, and losing someone you love? OK, yeah, that got dark quickly, but it’s all Time‘s fault, PROMISE.

But let’s back up. Just in time for spooky Saturday, Chapman University researchers conducted a survey this month about our biggest fears. After surveying over 1,500 adults, they compiled the top 10 fears Americans have — and actually, the top three have nothing to do with anything supernatural or ghoulish. The top one is government corruption, followed by cyber-terrorism, corporate tracking of personal information, and terrorist attacks. Really heavy stuff.

So Time decided to do some research of their own via digging through the Interwebs and finding out what are biggest fears are based on Google searches. Here are some of the results they found that really gave us the heebie-jeebies.

“Fear of death”

Let’s be real, who ISN’T afraid of death? Like, you can say you’re not afraid of death, but if someone came at you with a chainsaw, pretty sure you’d be terrified. And in every single state Time surveyed, this one was a biggie. So are they afraid of the actual dying part? Or what comes after that? Or not being on this Earth? Oh man, starting to feel a little freaked out even thinking about it.

“Afraid of love”

Aww, this one is kind of sad. It’s scary to put your heart out there, guys! After all, heartbreak is the actual worst. But remember, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. (Honestly, this would be a pretty rad Halloween costume. Let’s all dress up like Cupid and jump out at people.)

“Fear of people”

Some just don’t like people. Others are super awkward during any social interaction (*cough* ME *cough*) and try to avoid face-to-face contact. But still others are actually legitimately afraid of other people. It’s a thing, and it’s called anthropophobia. The more ya know.

“What is fear”

Some people are so brave that they legitimately DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT FEAR IS. I am afraid of these people. These are the people we should be avoiding to the max. These are the people we should be dressing up like for Halloween.

“Fear of words”

As a writer, I can’t really relate to this one, but it was a popular search in Georgia and Texas. Hey, words can be overwhelming (especially ones that have a tricky meaning. Like, did you know “plethora” doesn’t mean “a lot” but means “too many”? UGH SO CONFUSING).

So forget about the ghouls and the goblins this Halloween. The real fear factors are death, love, fear, words, and people who don’t know what fear is. Especially that last one. . . shaking in my boots just thinking about it.

(Image via Warner Bros. Television)