Google knows what your New Year’s resolutions are going to be

Might as well just get a jump on it and go for a run now. American society collectively decides to be virtuous every January and then promptly gives up. At least, that’s what the data suggested when University of Oxford chart hero Max Roser found when he went hunting on Google Trends. Every year without fail, there’s a spike in interest in treadmills and elliptical machines in January:

And that’s just the start of it. When you poke around more in Google Trends, it appears there are a few more Google resolution research trends. To a lesser degree, “marathon training” spikes in January:

Gyms (already a big search term) get a bump.

But diets might be the funniest trend. Instead of spiking and falling sharply, like many of these others, it spikes and then slowly falls off as the year goes on. The diet mania appropriately bottoms out in December, as we all just throw our hands up and gorge on egg nog and cookies.

Better luck next year, America.