Boo! Here’s what people in Missouri are most afraid of, report says

Jack-o’-lanterns are out and scary movies are back on television — Halloween is quickly approaching.

To celebrate the spooky season, a new report from home security company Your Local Security is identifying what scares people most in each state.

What keeps Missourians up at night? That’d be the fear of being alone, the report said.

Fear of being alone tripled since last year, and is also the thing that scares people most in Indiana and Minnesota.

In Kansas, anthropophobia — or the fear of people — reigned supreme while people in Illinois feared intimacy more than anything else, according to the report.

To determine the top fear in each state, Your Local Security analyzed the 15 most-Googled phobia searches from August 2018 to August 2019. Analysts also examined three new phrases that start with “fear of,” according to the report.

Nationally, fear of people was most common, accounting for 22% of all phobia searches the company analyzed, the report said.

“Search volume for anthropophobia increased by five times since 2019 and it reached an ultimate high between April 19th–25th,” the analysts said, adding they think the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in the spike.

Fear of flying — or aviophobia — also saw a big increase, with seven states fearing it most, compared to only three last year.

More oft-discussed phobias such as needles, spiders and clowns nabbed the top spots in several states, as well as holes, the dark and snakes.

Nevada and Florida each feared germs and viruses more than anything else and people in several states feared failure most, according to the report. The preeminent fear in Texas and Georgia was being outside.

California was the only state that feared social media more than anything — a finding analysts linked to Los Angeles’ dense “influencer” population.