Yesterday I read a fascinating New York Times article by David Leonhardt. It has nothing to do with Myanmar, but it does have interesting implications for societies pretty much the world over. A core statistical exercise involved analyzing every county in the US to determine the easiest and toughest places to live, based on six factors including income, education and life expectancy. Then, grafted onto that was an examination of how web searches differ at each end of the spectrum – in the really easy and the really tough places. “The results, based on a decade of search data, offer a portrait of the very different subjects that occupy the thoughts of richer and poorer America,” writes Leonhardt. “They’re a glimpse into the id of our national inequality.”

Some search items are big across all social classes – Oprah Winfrey, the Super Bowl, and so on. In rich America, though, there are many more searches for digital products such as cameras and iPods, for baby items such as jogging strollers and infant massages, and for exotic travel destinations. In poor America, there are many more searches linked to health problems, weight-loss diets, guns, video games, and apocalyptic religion. OK – maybe not especially compelling in itself. But in Myanmar this sort of disaggregated internet profiling would be a gold mine for social researchers. Moreover, as mobile phone use spreads exponentially over the next few months, gathering the data will become a real possibility. I do hope someone is already thinking about how to make that happen.