The search history can resemble a portrait without knowing which questions were asked for other people.

A record of questions looks revealing and is often badly wrong. Much of what someone looks up belongs to another person entirely: a symptom a parent mentioned, a fear on behalf of a friend, a thing a child asked at bedtime. The trail shows curiosity without showing whose life it was for, which is exactly the part that would explain it.

Be slow to draw conclusions from traces of anyone’s attention, including your own. And if you find yourself uneasy about what your questions might look like, remember that worry on someone else’s behalf is not something you need to justify.