The most-Googled phobia of the year is the fear of other people, according to researchers, who attribute the trend to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The term “anthropophobia” made up 22 percent of all fears searched nationwide — five times the number last year, Psych News Daily reported.
Searches for the word peaked between April 19 and 25 as the coronavirus crisis raged, and many people were stuck in lockdown, according to the outlet, which cited a report by security firm ADT.
Meanwhile, New York’s most-searched fear was “philophobia,” the fear of falling in love or intimacy.
In Florida, which has seen a sky-high number of coronavirus cases, the most Googled fear was for germophobia.
Californians, by contrast, were most frightened of having no cellphone, also known as nomophobia.
They also found New Jersey is most scared of the dark, Massachusetts is terrified by failure, and Indiana fears being alone.
To come up with the results, researchers analyzed Google Trends data over the past 10 months.
