This time each year, many of us experience a vague yet familiar sense of panic: Have I missed Mother’s Day? Is it too late to send Mom a card? How long much do express flower deliveries cost?
It seems, however, that there was more panic this year than usual—at least, based on the sharp spike in Google queries asking “When is Mother’s Day?,” according to a Google Trends (the index is normalized, meaning it’s adjusted for base trends in overall searches).
Time to add another datapoint to the myriad articles and studies saying Google is making us more forgetful? Maybe. If Facebook functionality is anything to go by, we clearly have trouble remembering birthdays of our friends and family members. Then again, in many countries Mother’s Day isn’t a fixed date—which means people probably still had to look it up in their calendars each year long before Google existed.
For reference, Mother’s Day in the US, Canada, and slew of other countries, is today, so make sure to at least call home. It’s not too late yet.