‘Gaslighting’ is the most Googled word in America — are you using it correctly?

 

Gaslighting has become one of the most popular words in the English language — if only most of us using it actually knew what the hell it meant.

According to a new study by Crossword Solver, the trendy term was the one Googled the most this year, typically in search of a definition. The news follows Merriam-Webster honoring it as 2022’s Word of The Year, after an 1,740% increase in search.

The esteemed dictionary lists gaslighting’s full definition as the “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.”

But that’s not how many people are using the word, experts warn — in modern times it has instead been weaponized as a way of shutting down discussion, in hopes of silencing those who disagree with you.

“Gaslighting is often used in an accusatory way when somebody may just be insistent on something, or somebody may be trying to influence you,” Dr. Robin Stern, co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of “The Gaslight Effect,” told Well and Good. “That’s not what gaslighting is.” 

According to Dr. Stern, gaslighting is “the act of undermining another person’s reality by denying facts, the environment around them, or their feelings,” specifically with the intent to cause confusion.

“The gaslighter intends to sow seeds of doubt in the person they are gaslighting, hoping to make them question their memory, their sanity, their perception, their reality,” she added.

The expert warns that misusing the word will make it more difficult for people who are being gaslit to understand when it’s happening — and will diminish people’s understanding of the severity of the abusive tactic.

Fully understood or no, the experts at Merriam-Webster noted the word’s addition to the country’s lexicon made perfect sense, given the social climate.

“In this age of misinformation — of ‘fake news,’ conspiracy theories, Twitter trolls, and deepfakes — gaslighting has emerged as a word for our time,” Merriam-Webster said in announcing the word last year.

Peter Sokolowski, the dictionary’s editor at large, said the word was looked up every day in 2022.

But it wasn’t left behind last year, the new study showed.

The term has become commonplace —especially among Gen Z — along with the rise of therapy speak.

Nearly a quarter of American adults saw a health professional for their mental health in 2022, according to a Gallup poll, as the country continues to struggle with a serious mental health crisis.

Americans are seeking therapy now more than ever, in an attempt to learn tools to better understand and manage their lives and relationships. And they’re putting what they’ve learned (or think they’ve learned), including the vocabulary, into practice.

As this has happened, experts have warned of an uptick of people “weaponizing” therapist speak, which came into the mainstream in recent years when “Bachelorette” Katie Thurston posted about her ex-boyfriend “gaslighting” her on the show, or when Jonah Hill’s ex-girlfriend Sarah Brady put him on blast.

So if you’re not sure if you’re using the word correctly, join the rest of the country and Google it.