INTRODUCTION

QAnon is a political conspiracy theory movement that has gained a significant amount of traction online within the past few years. In October 2017, a user on the online platform 4chan began posting in a thread titled “Calm Before the Storm”. This user, under the name of “Q”, claimed to have Q-level security clearance in the US government, providing insight to the deep secrets of the state. Utilizing this professed status, Q released several posts on the site, most of which consisting of recurring themes. The posts, or “Q-drops”, primarily focus on an alleged cabal of cannibalistic and pedophilic individuals within the government, otherwise known as the “deep state” (Papasavva et al., 2020). Additional topics that are prominent within the conspiracy theory movement include climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, international affairs (particularly China and Russia), popular media, and former president Donald Trump’s role in dismantling the “deep state” (Miller, 2021). The ideologies that compose the QAnon conspiracy theory have gained an overwhelming amount of support, influencing the political climate of the US. For this reason, it’s imperative to examine the nature and implications of the movement both politically and sociologically. According to pre-existing research, interest in QAnon conspiracy theories has increased during the pandemic (Chan et al., 2021). However, minimal research has been conducted that analyzes the causes of this increase. Due to the increase in feelings of loneliness during COVID-19 lockdowns and the association between isolation and belief in extreme ideology (Postel, 2013), the relationships between these factors and how they relate with the QAnon conspiracy movement must be examined. 

LITERATURE REVIEW

Implications of QAnon

In order to get a thorough understanding of the conspiracy movement, the pre-existing discourse surrounding the nature of QAnon must be taken into account. As explained in the article “Characterizing QAnon: Analysis of YouTube Comments Presents New Conclusions About a Popular Conservative Conspiracy'' by Daniel Taninecz Miller, QAnon conspiracy theories promote polarizing ideologies and have developed a significant distrust in the government among believers. Therefore, it’s difficult to deny the influence of this political movement on the US’ current political environment. This being said, many studies disagree on how significant of a threat divisive ideology within QAnon conspiracy theories poses on public safety. In the article “The Gospel According to Q: Understanding the QAnon Conspiracy from the Perspective of Canonical Information'', the authors review the roughly 5,000 canonical Q-drops as well as QAnon related posts on Reddit in order to analyze the primary topics of discussion within the original posts and in the QAnon community. The authors specifically focus on QAnon’s role in the events that occurred in the US Capitol riots on January 6th, 2021. They elaborate that many of the individuals that participated in the capitol riots were supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theories and were encouraged by the movement, stating, “In the aftermath of the insurrection, it became clear that many of the people involved were QAnon followers, including law enforcement officers, former military, and Internet personalities (Aliapoulios et al., 2021).” Additionally, they noted that this was further exemplified by other violent crimes committed and justified by QAnon supporters, such as an attempt to blow up a statue in Illinois and kidnapping of children to save them from the “deep state”. Through this evidence, the authors argue that QAnon is responsible for instigating such acts of violence. This notion is supported in the article “QAnon Conspiracy Theory: Examining its Evolution and Mechanisms of Radicalization” by Amanda Garry, Samantha Walther, Rukaya Mohamed, and Ayan Mohammed. The authors, researchers at the American Counterterrorism Targeting and Resilience Institute, collected data through open source database collection on platforms that have significant QAnon-related activity, such as Telegram and Gab, as well as surveys. They concluded that a conspiracy mentality, such as that evoked by QAnon, increases the threat of violent extremism. Additionally, they note that QAnon has been deemed a potential terrorist threat by the FBI, warning of potential acts of violence from the community. For this reason, the authors recommend that a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiative is designed to deradicalize believers of QAnon. However, these convictions are not unanimously held by researchers. The article “QAnon: Radical Opinion versus Radical Action” argues that radicalism in the QAnon community is primarily ideological rather than in action. For this reason, they believe that QAnon should not be categorized as a terrorist organization. The authors, Sophia Moskalenko and Clark McCauley, use the failures of past CVE initiatives (ISIS CVE in 2015) to argue against the development of a CVE QAnon initiative. TThey argue this initiative would do more harm than good. While the authors disagree with the previously mentioned studies on the categorization of QAnon, they agree that extremist political ideology is widespread among the conspiracy theory movement. Therefore, it’s evident that extremist rhetoric and polarizing ideology are prominent within the conspiracy theory movement. 

Roots of Conspiracy Theory Movements

It’s essential to understand the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories arise and proliferate certain beliefs. The article “Conspiracy Theories'' by Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule discusses the factors that contribute to the creation and spread of conspiracy theories. They explain that conspiracy theories are caused by “conspiracy cascades”, which are products of lack of accessible information regarding a topic and reputational pressures. They state that group polarization within conspiracy theories operates in a similar manner, causing conspiracy theories focusing on significant issues to often become extreme. The authors warn of the dangers of many conspiracy theory groups, as they can lead to extremism and violence. It’s evident that QAnon is no exception to these findings. Understanding the extremity of QAnon beliefs provokes questions as to how so many individuals come to accept such fanactical ideation. In an article by Michael L. Sulkowski and Christian Picciolini, the authors discuss that some individuals are more susceptible to adopting extremist ideology. Sulkowski is a professor in psychiatry at the University of Arizona, and Christian Picciolini is a former member of an extremist movement and a founder of Free Radicals, an organization that aids former extremists in exiting such groups. The authors elaborate that individuals often join extremist groups due to their desire for a community and sense of belonging. Feelings of social isolation and loneliness amplify this process, making those experiencing psychological hardships vulnerable to radical ideologies. This is supported in the article “QAnon Conspiracy Theory: Examining its Evolution and Mechanisms of Radicalization”. Authors Garry, Walther, and Mohammed attribute individuals’ willingness to give credence to extreme ideology to social isolation, depression, and insecurities. Therefore, psychological factors such as feelings of isolation, depression, and loneliness are all significant factors to consider when analyzing the spread and adoption of the extremist ideology permeated in conspiracy theory movements such as QAnon.

Sociological Impacts of COVID-19

Examining data regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and its psychological impacts is necessary to contextualize the presented gap. This concept is discussed in the article “Depression and Loneliness During COVID-19 Restrictions in the United States, and Their Associations with Frequency of Social and Sexual Connections”. By conducting an online cross-sectional survey of 1010 adults, the researchers found that levels of loneliness had increased in the US adult population during COVID-19 lockdowns. The authors noted that individuals with lower incomes reported to have the highest levels of loneliness and depression, as well as women and young adults. They state that these feelings are attributed to a lack of in-person social and sexual interaction, flaws in online communication platforms, and lack of accessibility to in-person mental health services. All in all, levels of loneliness and depression increased as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns and social restrictions. 

Within the past few years, QAnon has grown in relevancy. This largely resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. Conspiracy theories often skyrocket following catastrophic events, leading to the inevitability of conspiracy regarding the pandemic (Sunstein and Vermeule, 2008). QAnon consists of many of these theories, including vaccine speculation and belief in manipulation of the pandemic by Democrats as a means to gain power. The article “Early COVID-19 Government Communication Is Associated With Reduced Interest in the QAnon Conspiracy Theory” explains that belief of conspiratorial narratives promoted by QAnon increased as a result of untimely government communication early on during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of this study, Ho Fai Chan , Stephanie M. Rizio, Ahmed Skali, and Benno Torgler, concluded through the collection and analysis of online search statistics relating to QAnon that uncertainty and disapproval of the government contributed to an increase in belief in QAnon. These beliefs stemmed from delayed and superficial information communicated from the government. As government officials failed to communicate thorough information about the virus, citizens began to develop conspiratorial ideas to fill in the gaps that were not officially disclosed. This study’s findings are supported by the fact that search trends are associated with actual political behavior (Madestam et al., 2013). This study, while helping to explain the political causes of the increases in belief in QAnon, fails to address the psychological causes of this growth. The evaluation of psychological causes has not yet been thoroughly conducted in current research, presenting a gap in the topic. 

Summary

All this being considered, QAnon plays a prominent role in the US’ current political climate, spreading ideas of mistrust in the government and affecting the processes of democracy in the country. QAnon conspiracy theories, while not categorized as an extremist or terrorist group, contain polarizing and radical ideation. “Q” themselves  typically don’t call for violence, with only 1.4% of drops calling for direct action (Linvill et al., 2021). However, the community can (and has in the instance of January 6, 2020) weaponize Q-drops to justify violent extremism. Such radical ideation is often attributed to feelings of insecurity, depression, and loneliness. Through conducted research, these psychological factors have been proven to have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of extended social isolation. Studies have been conducted to study the growth of the QAnon movement as a result of poor government communication. However, very minimal research has been conducted to study this growth as a result of psychological factors. Therefore, the question is raised: To what extent are feelings of loneliness induced by COVID-19 lockdowns associated with belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory? 

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

Study Design

This study investigates the relationship between feelings of loneliness and belief in QAnon conspiracy theories during COVID-19. The goal of this study is to better understand the recent increase in belief in QAnon and mechanisms of the movement as a whole. This greater understanding is significant because of the impact QAnon and other conspiracy movements have on the US’ political systems. It’s necessary to analyze how these movements function and permeate within a population. 

In order to explore the relationship between these two factors, a trend analysis study was conducted. In this study, the relation between online trends associated with QAnon and loneliness were observed. This methodology was necessary to achieve the goal of this study because it allowed for the analysis of patterns within QAnon belief and feelings of loneliness, presenting identifiable comparisons between the two. The use of a trend analysis also allowed for the comparison of these datasets with trends in COVID-19 data, providing more insight into the effects of the pandemic. With a trend analysis, predictions can be made about behavior in the QAnon movement in loneliness-inducing scenarios such as COVID-19 lockdowns.  The design of this study required the collection of quantitative data from online databases. In doing so, no human participants were incorporated for data collection. This factor is crucial to the success of the study because of the polarizing nature of the subject matter discussed. When attempting to gather qualitative data pertaining to belief in QAnon, any information collected may potentially be misleading. This particular phenomenon is outlined in the article “The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: ‘Come on in the water’s fine’” by Thomas Colley and Martin Moore. Platforms such as 4chan (the origin site of the QAnon conspiracy) are often flooded with irony, making jokes and legitimate political commentary virtually indistinguishable. Additionally, users on these sites are hyper-aware that they are publicly accessible and are often monitored by outsiders and even researchers. With this knowledge, users often intentionally code their language. These factors make it incredibly difficult to collect reliable qualitative data from the demographic in question, and therefore quantitative data was collected instead. This study relied on collecting data from online databases, providing statistics on the subject, a more unbiased and reliable source of information than survey or qualitative data could guarantee.

This study used online databases as a means of data collection. QAnon is a movement that is fundamentally based on online content and interaction, therefore the majority of data regarding the subject is located online. Additionally, in comparison to the previously mentioned methods of qualitative data, online searches are completely anonymous. The security behind this anonymity allows Google searches to be unaffected by social desirability bias, meaning that individuals’ online activity is often an unbiased representation of their interests and possible political beliefs (Stephens-Davidowitz, 2014). Search trends can also reveal information about the trends in political beliefs of a populace. As evidenced in the article “Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement”, Google search trends often indicate increased belief in a political movement (Madestam et al., 2013), as increased numbers of searches increased with belief in corresponding political ideology. Therefore, it can be concluded that data collected from Google search trends on the subject matter of QAnon would reflect the amount of belief in the conspiratorial movement. Further, online data collection is also a useful means of accumulating information regarding feelings of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. A study conducted in the article “Is Google Trends a Useful Tool for Tracking Mental and Social Distress During a Public Health Emergency? A Time–Series Analysis” revealed that Google search trends regarding loneliness were indicative of feelings of loneliness in the general US population (Knipe et al., 2021. Therefore, online data collection via Google Trends and website traffic analytic programs are an effective means of collecting data on the subject matter of QAnon and loneliness induced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research Instruments

In this study, data was sourced from the online databases Google Trends and SEMrush.  These platforms provide anonymous data collected from online traffic. Seeing as all available data was gathered from an anonymous collective of online activity, no human subjects were involved in this study. Both Google Trends and SEMrush were necessary in providing sufficient data considering the different functions these programs provide, with Google Trends analyzing search terms and SEMrush providing website domain traffic analytics. 

Google Trends is a platform that reports the relative popularity of a search query in relation to all other Google searches. All search data is normalized on a scale from 0-100, with 100 representing the highest value of searches and 0 representing the lowest value of searches. The platform categorizes search term data by ‘Interest Over Time’ (monthly increments), ‘Interest by Subregion’(breakdown by state), ‘Relating Topics’ and ‘Related Queries’. For the purposes of this study, ‘Interest Over Time’ and ‘Related Queries’ were taken into account. Within various pre-existing studies examining both the growth of the QAnon conspiracy movement and loneliness during COVID-19, Google Trends was used as a primary source of data collection. Namely, the article “Early COVID-19 Government Communication Is Associated With Reduced Interest in the QAnon Conspiracy Theory” used a quantitative correlational method observing QAnon-related search terms to analyze the relationship between belief of QAnon and timely COVID-19 response and government communication (Chan et al., 2021). Using the research instruments of this study as a baseline, this study relied on Google Trends to observe the prevalence of interest in QAnon during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The use of website traffic analytic program SEMrush in addition to Google Trends ensured the thoroughness of the data collected. While QAnon search trends are reflective of belief in the movement, many individuals within the movement congregate and engage in discourse within select websites, those of which are not accounted for specifically in Google Trends. Particularly, QAnon permeated largely through discussions on platforms such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit (Aliapoulios et al., 2021). Additionally, designated websites exist to re-upload all existing Q-drops. In comparison to general searches, these websites are predominately members of the movement rather than those who don’t believe in the conspiracy theory. Therefore, a website traffic analysis was necessary to incorporate in this study. SEMrush was particularly selected due to its accessibility of features such as ‘Organic Traffic’ and ‘Main Organic Competitors’.

Initial search terms and websites used in this study were selected through analysis of prior studies. Using the key terms utilized in studies with similar subject matter and methodology (Chan et al., 2021; Knipe et al., 2021), the foundational search terms of ‘QAnon’ and ‘Loneliness’ were analyzed in Google Trends. The Google Trends ‘Relating Queries’ feature was used along with further recurring terms within the conspiracy movement (Papasavva et al., 2020). Similarly, the website 8kun.top was used as a starting point to locate related websites via SEMrush’s ‘Main Organic Competitors’ feature. Website domains relating to loneliness were excluded in this study, as most relevant websites resided within the domain of general health organizations and if incorporated would skew the data. Through these processes, the search terms ‘QAnon’, ‘WWG1WGA’ (Where We Go One We Go All), ‘Deep State’, ‘Loneliness’, ‘Social Isolation’, and ‘Feeling Lonely’ and domains ‘qalerts.app’, ‘qagg.news’, and ‘greatawakening.win’ accumulated for data collection. 

Procedures

Proceeding the compilation of search terms and domains, each item was plugged into the corresponding online database. Beginning with QAnon associated search queries, the terms ‘QAnon’, ‘WWG1WGA’, and ‘Deep State’ were each entered into Google Trends. The selected time range was then adjusted to ‘All Time’ in order to report data in monthly increments. Using the ‘Interest Over Time’ dataset, the interest value over each monthly increment within the 2 year span was then recorded for each observed search term. To combine these data and produce a singular comprehensive dataset, each value within the same monthly increment was then averaged amongst the 3 QAnon-related search queries. This process was then repeated for each loneliness-associated search term.

Subsequent to the use of Google Trends, a similar process was repeated in SEMrush. The selected QAnon related domains ‘qalerts.app’, ‘qagg.news’, and ‘greatawakening.win’ were entered into the program and observed under ;Domain Overview’'. After selecting to report US data using the feature ‘Distribution by Country’, data was retrieved from ‘Organic Traffic’. Using the 2 year time span, the traffic data for each month between January 2020-January 2022 was recorded for each domain. In order to rescale the values in the collected data (each domain having varying ranges), the following min-max normalization formula was applied to datasets of each of the domains: 

 zᵢ= (xᵢ – min(x)) / (max(x) – min(x)) * 100

wherein zᵢ represents the iᵗʰ normalized value in the dataset, xᵢ represents the iᵗʰ value in the dataset, min(x) represents the minimum value in the dataset, and max(x) represents the maximum value in the dataset. The values within each dataset were normalized between 0-100 in order to be comparable with the other domain datasets and the Google search trend datasets, placing them on a uniform scale. After applying the normalization formula to all domain traffic values, each value within the same monthly increment was then averaged amongst the 3 QAnon-related domains, producing a singular comprehensive domain dataset. 

Delimitations

For the purposes of this study, multiple delimitations were established. Although QAnon has gained a following in many countries, only US data was taken into consideration. With COVID-19 protocols and experiences varying greatly per nation, data was specifically observed from American online activity in order to limit the influence this variation may have on the data. This delimitation was also established on the basis that the QAnon conspiracy movement largely focuses on US politics and consists of predominantly American supporters. Further, a delimitation was set excluding domains created after January 2020  or taken down prior to January 2022 in order to guarantee a fully comprehensive dataset within the established time frame. In setting such a delimitation, domains relating to loneliness were not considered in this study as most were established following the COVID-19 pandemic. Limiting the collected data to this time-frame and country-wide demographic is critical to addressing the gap in data that observes the behavior of the QAnon movement during the COVID-19 pandemic.

RESULTS

QAnon Domain Results

Three QAnon discourse domains’ monthly traffic were recorded during this study. The three domains share similarities in their results, having minimal searches between early and mid-2020 before increasing late that year and into early 2021.

Observing each individually, ‘qagg.news’ maintained its lowest values from January 2020-October 2020, valuing between 0-9 on the normalized scale. Traffic for this domain increased to 23 in November 2020 and 49 in December 2020. This trend continued until reaching its maximum values of 100 between April 2021-October 2021. Lastly, the data gradually declined into late 2021/early 2022. This data is comparable to the domain ‘greatawakening.win’, which received its lowest quantity of traffic between January 2020-October 2020, valuing between 0-10. The traffic increased to a value of 23 in November 2020 and 48 in December 2020 before reaching its maximum values between May 2021-October 2021. Although maintaining the general pattern, the domain ‘qalterts.app’ observed variations in traffic data from the other domains. Despite maintaining low quantities of traffic between January 2020- August 2020 (4-12), this domain’s minimum values existed in mid-2020, valuing at 1 in September 2020. The data starkly increased into October 2020 (50) before reaching its values of 98-100 from April 2021-June 2021. The traffic gradually declined from its maximum values beginning in July 2021 through January 2022, ending at a value of 67. 

A mean of the 3 domains’ traffic was calculated in order to illustrate the general trends of QAnon-related domains online traffic. In order to assure the mean would accurately represent the dataset, a one-way ANOVA test was performed. Through an analysis of variance, the significance of differences between the means of groups is determined, wherein a p-value<0.05 indicates a significance. Considering the p-value between the domains is .999908, thus greater than 0.05, there is not a significant difference in means between groups. For this reason, calculating the mean of these data would be an accurate representation of QAnon domains in generality.

QAnon Search Trend Results

The monthly trends of Google search terms ‘Qanon’, ‘WWG1WGA’, and ‘Deep State’ were recorded during this study. While the search queries share commonalities in their trends, there are multiple differences amongst them. Thus, the average trend in data of QAnon search terms less strongly represents all queries.

The query ‘Qanon’ underwent multiple peaks in its searches. From January 2020-March 2020, the term increased from 4 to 17, continuing this incline to 42 in July 2020. The term reached its second highest peak (88) in August 2020, dropping to a low of 10 in December 2020 before spiking to 100 in January 2021. The term received a low volume of searches following this peak, into the end of the time period. The search term ‘WWG1WGA’ experienced 2 significant peaks in its amount of searches. The term gradually increased from the beginning of the observed time period to its highest peak of 100 in July 2020. The trend observed a sharp decline into late 2020 before reaching its second highest peak (40) in January 2021. Lastly, the search query ‘Deep State’ varied from the trends of the other 2 terms. This term had one primary peak, and the data steadily declined throughout the duration of the time period. ‘Deep State’ reached its peak of 100 in March 2020. With the exception of a slight increase in searches in January 2021 (54), the data experienced no other significant spike and maintained values between 17-28 for the remainder of the period.

Considering the trends in data of the individual search terms, it’s necessary to observe the correspondence between them. Most evidently, all terms increased in January 2021. Both terms ‘Qanon’ and ‘WWG1WGA’ experienced peaks in mid 2020, specifically within the months of July 2020 and August 2020. All search queries declined following their increase after January 2021 and consistently remained a low value for the remainder of the observational period. 

In order to establish a general trend representative of QAnon related search terms, a one-way ANOVA test was calculated among the three search queries. Although the p-value>0.05, the p-value is relatively low (0.066794), indicating variation in the data. The variation in trends required the data to be checked for outliers to avoid creating misleading results. The search queries’ data was analyzed via the Grubb’s test for outliers, otherwise referred to as the ESD method (extreme studentized deviate). This method tests for significant outliers in datasets by calculating a Z-value through the following formula:

Z=|mean-value|/SD

After performing the test, no outliers were identified within this dataset. Therefore, no values were discounted in the overall calculation of mean QAnon-related search term trends. The mean QAnon search trend reflects the overarching commonalities in all three search terms. The data slightly increases to a value of 52 in March 2020 and again to 50 in June 2020, before peaking at a value of 73 in August 2020. The data reached its second highest peak in January 2021 at a value of 65. From this point, the data gradually declined and remained at low values.

Loneliness Search Trend Results

The final points of data collected in this study were Google search terms reflecting trends in loneliness, such as ‘Loneliness’, ‘Feeling Lonely’, and ‘Social Isolation’. The query ‘Loneliness’ peaked in early 2020, but remained relatively high for the duration of the study. The term reached its maximum value of 88 in April 2020. The data slightly increased in October 2020 at a value of 61; however, the remainder of the data does not experience any significant changes during the time span of the study. Similarly, the search term ‘Feeling Lonely’ reported minimal variation in data. This term reached its second highest peak of 93 in February 2020, a relatively small increase from its initial value of 88. The term slightly decreased before reaching a value of 92 in June 2020. The query reached its highest peak at a value of 97 in January 2021. The data then declined, remaining within the 60s-70s from mid 2021 through early 2022. Thus, the terms ‘Loneliness’ and ‘Feeling Lonely’ both experienced increases in early 2020 and early 2021.

Analyzing the recorded data for the search term ‘Social Isolation’, it’s evident that this source of data does not accurately represent search terms relating to loneliness. A one-way ANOVA test  shows significant differences in means between the groups, with p=0.00001. Using a Post Hoc Tukey HSD, pairwise comparisons between means were determined between loneliness-related trends. The most significant difference in means were ones in relation to ‘Social Isolation’. With this information and the observable variation in data, there is a significant difference in data in this term from the others. Upon analysis, it’s evident that this term is representative of social isolation within a physical context rather than a psychological one. This search term was ultimately omitted from the study. 

Using solely data collected from queries ‘Lonely’ and ‘Feeling Lonely’, the monthly means were calculated in order to produce a line representing general trends relating to loneliness. As only 2 sets of data were used to represent loneliness-related search terms, an outlier test was unable to be conducted, and the values were averaged. 

ANALYSIS

After analyzing the data in this study, it can be concluded that there is not a strong relationship between the trends of QAnon domains, QAnon search trends, and loneliness search trends. For this reason, the hypothesis that QAnon online activity (composed of searches and domain traffic) corresponds with that of loneliness online activity is disproven. While the correspondence of trends in the data collection is weak, it’s necessary to address points of similarity. Both mean QAnon related search terms and loneliness related search terms experienced an increase in the beginning of 2020. These commonalities extend between QAnon related domains and QAnon search trends, seeing as they both experienced an increase during January 2021. While it may be significant that this increase corresponds with the third wave of COVID-19 case surges and lockdowns, this is likely the result of the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021. The events at the Capitol were largely attributed to individuals who believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, therefore leading to an increase in online activity (Frincu, 2021). Further examining the relationship between the findings of this study with COVID-19 data, both loneliness-related search terms and QAnon-related search terms experienced an increase during the first wave of COVID-19 in early 2020. The correlation between these factors, however, does not persist throughout the observed time period. This fact signifies that while loneliness-related Google Search trends corresponded with COVID-19 cases and lockdowns when it was originally studied, this relationship weakened later into the pandemic. This is likely due to lessened restrictions even during periods of higher cases.

 It’s imperative to note that there are differences in trend data between the two QAnon-related groups despite initially hypothesized that they would be similar. While this may be justified by the fundamental differences in their sources (search trends vs. domain traffic), it must be noted that the audience engaging in their data may vary. While general searches do reflect the belief in a political ideology within a populace, it’s not uncommon for an individual to search ‘QAnon’ without giving credence to its ideation. Contrastingly, QAnon-focused forums are more specifically populated by QAnon believers, with political researchers and opposition accounting for the minority of the users. This variation in audience is further exemplified by the difference in data among QAnon search trends. Queries range in specificity, from the broad term ‘QAnon’ to the greatly specific ‘WWG1WGA’. While there was not a significant enough difference in the data to discount any of the terms, its variation is evident. In summation, the differences in trends among QAnon domains , QAnon search trends, and loneliness search trends disproves that there is a strong relationship between loneliness during COVID-19 and belief in QAnon from the analysis of online activity. 

CONCLUSION

Limitations

This study consisted of multiple limitations. Firstly, the use of domain traffic rather than website traffic prevented the collection of traffic data in relation to loneliness. All significant online spaces in which loneliness was addressed were located in a website with a more broad domain. These domains were often that of health organizations, and therefore would not give an accurate representation of the psychological response during COVID-19. This lack of traffic data resulted in a less comprehensive data collection to represent feelings of loneliness. Despite not having comparable traffic data in regards to loneliness, QAnon domain data was not discounted in order to provide a more thorough insight of online QAnon-related behavior. 

Another limitation that affected the study is the anonymity of Google Trends and domain traffic data. While this feature of these instruments is beneficial to prevent social desirability bias (Stephens-Davidowitz, 2014) and guarantee the protection of all users’ personal information, it’s impossible to prove that the same online users searched both about loneliness and QAnon. An educated inference can be drawn from a strong relationship but cannot be irrefutably proven.

Lastly, there are a myriad of justifications behind a search query increasing in relative value of searches. As previously noted, the US Capitol insurrection of January 2021 had an impact on the amount of QAnon related searches during that month. Significant political events correspond with an increased belief in conspiracy theories (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2008), QAnon being no exception. It’s also worth noting that QAnon online activity increased when Q-drops were published online, sparking discourse in QAnon forums. 

Fulfillment of Gap in Research

This study addresses the gaps that exist regarding the growth in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement during COVID-19. Namely, it addressed the potential psychological effects of this increase and the quantitative analysis of QAnon discussion forum. Additionally, this study incorporated quantitative domain analytics to provide insights about online activity without the interference of social desirability bias (Stephens-Davidowitz, 2014). This contrasts from preexisting research which predominantly have taken a qualitative approach to analyzing QAnon forums and other forums permeating polarizing political ideology. 

Implications

The results of this study further the current knowledge of the mechanisms by which QAnon conspiracies proliferate. Understanding that there is no immediate relationship between QAnon online activity and loneliness online activity provides insights to both the function of conspiracy theories and the immediate psychological impacts of prolonged physical isolation. Further, these findings can be used by researchers in future studies if analyzing Google Trends or online traffic to study the behavior of QAnon or other conspiracy theory movements, specifically the differences between instruments used by the general public, researchers, political opposition, and beginning followers as opposed to instruments used by members of the movement.

Areas for Future Research

The delimitations established in this study present areas for future research. For example, the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns on belief in QAnon can be researched within adjusted geographical parameters. This study used US trend and traffic data and did not take into account regional or international data. By adjusting the areas by which data is reported, varying COVID-19 lockdown policies and protocols may then be observed. Additionally, analytic feature restrictions posed limitations on the time span in which data could be collected, allowing only two months of data prior to the spread of COVID-19 in the US to be collected. Future research can extend this data collection period in order to provide more comprehensive data representing QAnon and loneliness trends before the pandemic.

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