In this latest episode of the Mason Vera Paine Show, Mason and Google Trends Expert Jennifer Jones discuss this year’s hottest back-to-school search trends. Jennifer shares what parents and students are looking up the most from study tips for science and helpful tools for tackling homework. Jennifer also discusses the latest AI-powered tools by Google and how they are changing the way students, parents, and even teachers approach learning and organization.
Episode Highlights: Back to School Top Google Trends with Jennifer Jones
1:13 – Jennifer highlights Google AI tools for students, especially NotebookLM, which helps turn study notes into visual video overviews for different learning styles. The Google AI Pro plan is free for students 18 and up for a year.
2:22 – Top back-to-school shopping searches: retro mini fridges for dorms, trendy dormwear, and preppy first day of school outfits. Retro fridges in pastel colors are particularly popular.
4:26 – Jennifer explains how Google Shopping can help stay within a budget, track prices, and virtually try on clothes before buying. This feature helps prevent returns and ensures the outfit choice is right.
5:56 – Jennifer shares where listeners can access more information: Google Trends and the Google homepage for all the tools mentioned.
Google Top Searched Back to School Trends Transcription
Announcer – 0:00: Mason Vera Paine.
Mason Paine – 0:02: The new school year is here. Find out which back to school items parents are searching for and how AI is shaping classrooms this year with Google Trends expert Jennifer Jones. Thanks for joining me, Jennifer.
Jennifer Jones – 0:13: Hey, I’m so glad to be here as always.
Mason Paine – 0:15: So for this month, what were the trends? The top trends?
Jennifer Jones – 0:19: Well, it is back to school and we had several trends across that topic. Everything from, you know, shopping and homework trends and subject trends and what people needed to look up. The top trending subject matter for study tips was science. So everybody wants to know how to study best for science. And the top trending request from parents on how to help kids with is homework. Homework, spelling, words, how to help a kid with ADHD focus better in school. Parents just continuing to come to Google as always for information and guidance for work, home and life.
Mason Paine – 0:59: You know when you said about the science and math that everybody’s wondering how to study and I think to myself there’s no workaround. You’re just going to have to sit down and read it, just get a highlighter and figure it out.
Jennifer Jones – 1:13: That is true. But you know, you could use some Google AI tools. I’d be happy to share a little bit more about that. Our Google AI Pro plan is free for all students 18 and up for a year. You get access to deep research NotebookLM and 2 terabytes of storage. And we also have product NotebookLM which if you’re not familiar with, I recommend it strongly to everyone. It has AI mode in Google search and you can make video overviews your material. So if you’re a visual learner like I am, NotebookLMS video overviews, they can really turn lecture notes and those course materials into short educational videos with images, diagrams, quote, et cetera from the documents you provide. So after you do your due diligence and you study and you highlight those things, if you put them into NotebookLM, it can create visual video overview for you for a different style of learning to be accommodated.
Mason Paine – 2:05: That’s amazing. I’m wondering could like I think for grammar students, middle school and high school, but could college students use this too?
Jennifer Jones – 2:13: Oh yeah, if we’re all ages 13 and up. You know, it doesn’t have to be just for schoolwork. It can be for anything with life or your notes from a work meeting and you want to look at it in a different way or get some inspiration. You can upload those. You can, you know, talk to NotebookLM and tell it things and create a source and then it can generate the material in a different format so you can digest it in a way that works for you.
Mason Paine – 2:36: You know, I’m thinking all the poor parents out there who are going to have to learn something on the side just to help with studying.
Jennifer Jones – 2:43: Well, it’s truly an advantage if you do. Our tools are so simple to use and they come, you know, people have come to Google every day forever to learn, you know, school, work, life. This just makes it really personal and accessible for everyone. You know, built into most of our products like Search, like Gemini and you know, these immersive interactive experiences, the learning curve is not that steep and it really helps you build knowledge and change in our thriving worlds.
Mason Paine – 3:11: You know, studying has always been tough for any student and I know for myself it was really tough for me. But what I really loved about school was the shopping. Was there no trends for shopping?
Jennifer Jones – 3:22: Back to school sales was a breakout search this month. Everyone wanted to know what was best on sale for those dorm rooms. A retro dorm mini fridge. So a retro fridge, not just a regular fridge, was the top trending style for fridge type. Lots of kids were also looking for dormwear lounge. You know, that was a breakout search so far this year. What to wear when you’re hanging out around the dorm and preppy first day of school outfits is the top trending aesthetic that people are looking for for those first day of school outfits.
Mason Paine – 3:57: That is so cute. The retro fridge. Now in my mind I’m thinking like, you know, 1940s, 1950s. Am I right? Or is this like a 1980s thing?
Jennifer Jones – 4:07: No, it’s definitely like the cute pastel colors with the fun door handles. Yeah, you’re right on the target there.
Mason Paine – 4:14: Oh, thank goodness. I was like, how far back retro? Because I’m never sure what decade they’re talking about.
Jennifer Jones – 4:19: Yep, that’s the one.
Mason Paine – 4:21: Now when it comes to Google, I know they have like the Google shopping. Does that still work with this?
Jennifer Jones – 4:26: Oh yeah, for sure. You can put any of those trends in and the Google shopping will really help track stay within your budget. There’s a couple ways that I personally use it and one of them is to track prices for items you want to buy. You can even set in a specific budget. So it only shows you things within that budget and you get an alert if the price drops into that budget or if something comes up inside, inside your price range. And you know, if you’re shopping for any clothes, but especially on those savings, back to school savings, we have a tool tool that you can now virtually try on clothes. It was previously in beta. Now it is available to anyone in the US You Just upload a full picture, full body picture of yourself to this virtual try on and you can virtually try on like anything, billions of clothes, everything from school clothes to, you know, wedding dresses to whatever. And you just see how the different styles look on you. And that way you don’t really have any regrets once you hit purchase, you already know it’s going to look great.
Mason Paine – 5:31: That’s actually really cool sounding and you’re right. The amount of money you would save in the time just to know that bam, this is the outfit I’m wearing and I know I’m not sending it back. That’s pretty cool.
Jennifer Jones – 5:41: Yeah, I know. I’m, I’m terrible at returns. So even if you buy a few things and bring them home, I’m really bad at returning them. So this is a game changer.
Mason Paine – 5:48: Well, Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me. It’s always lovely to have you with me. For those listening, where can they find all this cool information we talked about?
Jennifer Jones – 5:56: Yeah, you can go straight to Google trends. You can always just start Google homepage to get to any of these tools. Type in their name into our trusty search and you’ll be on your way.
Announcer – 6:08: This has been the Mason Vera Paine Show. Thanks for listening.
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