Study Reveals Illinoisans Fear Being Alone More Than Most Americans
CHICAGO (CBS)--Spiders, clowns and public speaking have long topped the list of the things we're most afraid of, but a recently-released study that pinpoints people's greatest fears by the state they live in coughed up some surprising results.
The report, from a blog run by home security company ADT, examined which types of fears people Googled in each state between August 29, 2017 and the same date the following year.
Researchers used Google's autocomplete feature to find the 15 most common ways to end the phrases "Why am I afraid of/to" and "Why am I scared of/to" and the scientific names of those fears and put them into Google Trends to determine which phobias each state was searching for the most.
It turns out residents of Alabama and 10 other states including Louisiana and Maine had fears that were total opposites of what people in Illinois and Vermont fear the most.
In 11 states, the top fear was ranked as 'Anthropophobia'--a morbid fear of social situations and being around people. The same number of states ranked spiders as the top fear.
In Illinois, our deepest-seated fears lie at the other end of the spectrum.
Illinoisans fear being alone over all other fears, according to the study. The only other state that asked Google why they're scared of being alone as much as people in Illinois did was Vermont.
The scientific name for the fear of solitude is 'Autophobia', a morbid fear of isolation or abandonment.
And while the realization that many of us Illinoisans find ourselves overwhelmed by the thought of loneliness may seem depressing, other states arguably have it much worse.
Take Kansas residents, for example, who are more scared of love (a condition known as 'Philophobia') than the rest of America.
People in Missouri and Nevada fear commitment above all else--yes, even death.
In California--home to Hollywood and Silicon Valley--people commonly fear success, a condition known as 'Achievemephobia'.
Over on the East Coast, people in New York and New Jersey are afraid of driving.
But Texans probably have the worst type of fear, because they're scared of everything.
'Panophobia', the most Googled fear in Texas, is a condition defined as a 'generalized, lingering fear that something bad is about to happen.'
