Home to renowned wooden rollercoaster Megafobia, Oakwood Theme Park provides thrills for guests of all ages. In this spirit, they’ve explored and ranked the country’s biggest fears! To find out which ones those are, they scoured through Google Search Data to find what people have been searching for. They also looked at how they vary from region to region to see if certain phobias are more likely in certain parts of the country.
Trypophobia is, by far, the most commonly-searched phobia in the UK. This fear of small holes and irregular patterns can seem strange to non-sufferers, but those search figures clarify that it’s a very real and serious phobia.
Claustrophobia, hypochondria and agoraphobia took up the next three spots on the list. All of these conditions are medically recognised by the NHS, and can have huge impacts on people’s lives.
Further down the list comes some of the more specific phobias, such as Arachnophobia and Coulrophobia (fear of spiders and clowns, respectively). Whilst these phobias might not be so omnipresent, we can certainly sympathise with sufferers if they’re ever unfortunate to encounter an eight-legged beasty or a two-legged, red-nosed entertainer.
There are a handful of phobias which have cropped up in recent years. The fear of modern tech (Technophobia) and being away from mobile phones (Nomophobia) certainly would not have been such big issues a few years ago. You could also argue that Pogonophobia, the fear of beards, is more serious now during the age of the hipster.
Oakwood also delved into the different results by region to discover if certain phobias were more common in certain parts of the UK. Here are some interesting little facts they found…
- Scotland had more searches for Thalassophobia than any other region. For a country surrounded by the wilds of the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps this isn’t surprising.
- London and the South East had the highest searches for Acrophobia. Could this be triggered by the high-rise buildings of the capital?
- Northern Ireland was the only region where Cynophobia (fear of dogs) was not in the top 20 searches. A nation of dog lovers it would seem.
- Yorkshire/Humber and Northern Ireland were the only two regions where Autophobia (fear of being alone) made the list.
- North East and North West England were the only regions where Ergophobia (fear of work) made the list.
- London and the South East were the only regions where Mysophobia (fear of germs) made the list. The tube is certainly off-limits to them.
- London, East Midlands, Wales and South West all had Philophobia (fear of love) in the list but no other regions had this in their top 20.
- North East, North West and Yorkshire/Humber were the only regions where Pogonophobia (fear of beards) didn’t make the list. It appears the mighty beard is better received up north, then.
