Every December, Google compiles its ‘Zeitgeist’ – a look at which search terms people are typing into Google most often, and which terms are increasing or decreasing in frequency. The results, or at least the slice of them Google chose this year, are a bit bizarre, and for those trying to do serious work on the web they're not especially encouraging.

Consider, first of all, the results for ‘Top of Mind,’ one of the four Zeitgeist categories. The most-searched term that begins with "how to," believe it or not, is "how to kiss," followed by "how to draw," "how to knit," and "how to hack." While these last three make some sense (though of course if you have to type "How to Hack' into Google you're surely not going to be much of a hacker) but what's with that first one?

The other results in "Top of Mind," are equally disconcerting. The favourite "who is" term was "who is God?" which I suppose one could read as a sign of people searching for meaning (especially paired with the top "what is" result, "what is love?") But the second favourite – "who is who?" – suggests that vast numbers of people using Google are simply playing around.

The "what is," category is slightly more coherent – after "what is love?", the next few are at least real questions: "what is autism?" “what is RSS?" and "what is lupus?" Medical terms and technology terms dominate here, which is what you might expect.

Moving on to the ‘All the Rage’ category, the top search under recipes is the "Master Cleanse Recipe," a dubious-sounding lemon-based concoction that's supposedly good for weight-loss and detoxification. Actual food follows (interrupted only by "mojito"), and I guess one could read it as a good sign that only one new-age health drink made the top ten.

What I really found alarming though was the ‘Newsmaker’ category, made up of top searches from Google News. The No 1 search globally on Google News was…"American Idol." No 2 was "YouTube." No 3 was "Britney Spears." Of the top ten, only "Iran," at No 9, and possibly iPhone at No 6, were linked to anything that qualifies as real news.

Maybe I'm a snob, or an old-line journalistic elitist, but I find it depressing that five of the top ten "news" searches involve vapid celebrities.

Overall, the Zeitgeist paints a picture of people who, on the one hand, are obsessed with celebrities and technology, and on the other hand are aimlessly searching for meaning in all the wrong places. The technology bent is obviously a function of a disproportionate interest in technology among those who are using technology (i.e. Google), but the celebrity focus, at best, seems to confirm a rather banal reality: people spend a lot of time procrastinating at the office by typing Paris Hilton into Google News.

The Zeitgeist is meant to be fun, and you can't really blame Google for its cheery gloss on the news results: "This year we clearly had politics on our minds, but even with the 2008 US election season already upon us, we welcomed diversions from the famous and the infamous. As presidential hopefuls gave us their pitches, we all managed to keep up with our favourite reality shows and investigate rumours about colourful celebrities."

Furthermore, anyone in the news business knows very well that the generally high level of interest in celebrity news is not exactly news. On one level, it's all harmless enough.

But it's also odd that now that we actually have a "magic answer machine" in the sky, aka Google, we can't seem to find very interesting things to ask. Maybe we just need more practice.

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Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a regional news service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard