11 iPhones Dominate American Teen Ownership
In Piper Sandler’s October 2023 survey, 87% of American teenagers owned an iPhone, while 88% expected an iPhone to be their next phone. The investment firm surveyed roughly 9,200 teenagers across 49 states, mostly before the iPhone 15 became available. These percentages exactly matched the results of its April 2023 survey.
12 Suits Inspires Future Legal Professionals
In a 2023 survey of 500 legal professionals, more than half said legal TV shows influenced their career choice, while 57% of those respondents believed the show that influenced them realistically depicted a legal career. Among those swayed by television, 30% named Suits and 22% chose Law and Order. Shoreditch-based EM Law commissioned the survey after its director interviewed a woman named Olivia Wilson, who said she wanted to become “a Donna” because she admired the Suits character’s confidence and competence. Wilson later joined the firm as an executive assistant.
13 Hiring Managers Deceive Job Candidates
A 2023 ResumeBuilder.com survey of 1,060 hiring managers and business leaders found that 36% admitted lying to candidates during the hiring process, and 75% of that group said they lied during interviews. Among the managers who lied, 92% said at least one candidate they deceived later accepted a job offer. However, 55% also said an employee had quit after discovering the deception.
14 Dogs Influence Millennial Home Purchases
In a 2017 SunTrust Mortgage survey, 33% of millennial Americans who had purchased their first home said the need for a better space or yard for a dog influenced their decision. Dogs ranked third among the cited reasons, behind more living space at 66% and building equity at 36%, but ahead of marriage at 25% and having a child at 19%. Harris Poll conducted the online survey among 412 Americans aged 18 to 36, including 248 first-time homeowners.
15 Cardiologists Report High Obesity Rates
A 2014 Medscape lifestyle survey found that 43% of U.S. cardiologists reported being overweight or obese. That placed cardiology on par with anesthesiology and internal medicine, below general surgery at 49% and family medicine at 48%.
16 Lay’s Customers Overlook Real Potatoes
In 2025, Lay’s cited company research claiming that 42% of people who enjoyed the brand did not realize its chips were made from real, farm-grown potatoes. As part of a major rebrand, the company redesigned its bags with potato imagery and prominently printed “Made With Real Potatoes” on the packaging. Lay’s also announced that it would remove artificial flavors and colors from its U.S. products.
17 Children Misidentify Everyday Food Sources
In 2017, a British Nutrition Foundation survey found that 18% of UK children aged five to seven thought fish fingers were made from chicken, while 29% believed cheese came from a plant. Another 22% of the same age group thought pasta came from animals. The foundation questioned 5,040 children for Healthy Eating Week.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
18 Children Play Outside Far Less
A 2022 UK survey of 3,000 adults and children found that only 27% of children aged six to 16 regularly played outside near their homes, compared with 71% of baby boomers recalling that they did so as children. The figure reached 80% among respondents aged 55 to 64. OnePoll questioned 1,000 children, 1,000 adults, and 1,000 parents, while one in four participating children said parents or neighbors had told them to stop playing in their street or local area.
19 Teenagers Fear Getting Behind Wheels
A 2018 U.S. survey found that 40.2% of teenagers considered driving scary, while 23% of unlicensed teens cited fear as a key reason they did not drive. Parents shared that anxiety, with 58% saying the thought of their teenager driving frightened them. SurveyGizmo questioned 603 teenagers aged 13 to 18 and 605 parents for The Zebra.
20 Eastern Germans Report Widespread Atheism
A 2012 study titled “Beliefs About God Across Time and Countries” found no respondent under age 28 in eastern Germany who said they believed in God. The same research found that 52.1% of eastern German respondents identified as atheists, compared with 10.3% in western Germany. Communist East Germany had promoted atheism and created secular traditions such as Jugendweihe, a coming-of-age ceremony that continued after German reunification.
RE: Fact #43 (Remote Workers Save Thousands Annually) – Probably not a great fact to share with employers. They’ll just use it as an excuse to let you work from home while cutting your salary by 10 grand.
RE: Fact #24 (Americans Reject Arabic Numerals Unknowingly) – This is a slippery slope. Next thing you know, people will be demanding they stop teaching algebra in schools too.
RE: Fact #36 (Mothers Earn Cool Mom Status) – My mom is awesome, and if everyone had a supportive parent like mine, the world would be a much better place.
RE: Fact #11 (iPhones Dominate American Teen Ownership) – People are just locked into the ecosystem, and there is not much reason for them to switch.
RE: Fact #13 (Hiring Managers Deceive Job Candidates) – Hiring managers lie constantly, especially about the reasons a position is actually open.
RE: Fact #1 (Family Estrangements Affect Millions Nationwide) – My extended family on one side used to have annual get-togethers, but things changed when one relative decided she didn’t want to be around a certain family member anymore. She stopped attending any events where he might be present, which effectively meant she cut ties with the whole family, not just him.
I’ve been there too. I went no-contact with my mom, so I skip family events on her side. The two times I did go to big things like a wedding or my grandmother’s 90th, she made it all about her, crying about how her child won’t talk to her. It’s frustrating because she ignores the fact that she was the one who stopped talking to me first over a perceived slight, and she completely glosses over decades of physical and verbal abuse.
I cut off my mom’s side of the family along with her. Now I only hear about them when they pop up in the local news for getting arrested again.
RE: Fact #14 (Dogs Influence Millennial Home Purchases) – For my next project, I am going to design small housing units that include a play area for dogs.
RE: Fact #20 (Eastern Germans Report Widespread Atheism) – It’s interesting that in Russia, after 70 years of atheistic state policies, the population returned to the global average of about 16% atheist, while East Germany didn’t. I wonder what caused that difference.
RE: Fact #17 (Children Misidentify Everyday Food Sources) – My kid hates tomatoes but loves salsa. He also used to hate potatoes, but the only side he would eat at one restaurant was the hashbrown casserole, he called it ‘cheesy rice.’
RE: Fact #47 (Menu Anxiety Overwhelms American Diners) – The Cheesecake Factory is the absolute worst for this. I just pretend 90% of the menu doesn’t exist when I go there now.
RE: Fact #46 (Afghan Men Unaware of 9/11) – Americans are traumatized by 9/11 largely because the U.S. hasn’t had to deal with major military aggression on its own soil in history. We don’t understand what it’s like to have your neighborhood firebombed, droned, or destroyed as collateral damage, or to have your kids killed by landmines after the worst seems over. To people in war-torn regions who even know what 9/11 is, our reaction must feel like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum.
RE: Fact #31 (Americans Overestimate Their Own Intelligence) – It’s a mix of impostor syndrome and Dunning-Kruger. If I’m certain of anything, it’s that I’m not as smart as I want to be. There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting to really understand something but feeling like you lack the capacity to get there.
RE: Fact #22 (Survey Creates Most Unwanted Song) – It’s a masterpiece. If I had to listen to one song on repeat forever, this would be it. If I’m going to lose my mind anyway, I might as well get it over with quickly.
RE: Fact #35 (Workers Estimate 173 Productive Minutes) – That survey only covers desk jobs. If you work a physical job like nursing or retail, you are definitely spending way more of your shift actually doing things.
RE: Fact #50 (Mario Outranks Mickey Among Children) – I remember watching Mickey Mouse cartoons in the 90s and just thinking they weren’t as funny as Looney Tunes.
RE: Fact #47 (Menu Anxiety Overwhelms American Diners) – When I go to a new restaurant, I scan the whole menu quickly to find one thing I’ll probably like, then spend the rest of the time agonizing over every other item until the waiter arrives. If I haven’t found a better option, I just stick with the first one. It works when I’m put on the spot, but it means I’m rarely adventurous. If I check the menu online beforehand, I get confident in what I want, until I arrive and find out the physical menu is totally different. Then I panic, revert to the quick-scan method, and feel like I’ve been cheated out of a better meal.
RE: Fact #45 (Infants Receive Soda Before Toddlerhood) – That definitely explains the stat about 25% of kids having cavities by age 4. Soda is packed with sugar and acid.
RE: Fact #27 (Packaging Causes Thousands of Injuries) – There is regular packaging, and then there is the absolute nightmare of opening a Barbie doll. You would think they were made of solid gold given how they secure them. Between the plastic that slices your fingers, the twist ties, rubber bands, and the thread sewing the hair to the box, you aren’t really opening a doll so much as breaking her out of a high-security prison.
RE: Fact #44 (British Adults Forget Basic Mathematics) – It isn’t that shocking. If you haven’t needed to calculate the ‘mode’ or the area of a circle in decades, you’re bound to forget what those even are. The 20% who don’t understand basic fractions or percentages is the real concern, though.
RE: Fact #25 (Stilton Cheese Accompanies Vivid Dreams) – Calling your weird British cheese dreams ‘odd’ doesn’t really do them justice. What exactly happens in these dreams?
RE: Fact #28 (Workers Leave Paid Vacation Unused) – I recall hearing about an American working in Sweden whose company eventually had to take away his laptop just to make him actually stop working and take some time off.
RE: Fact #7 (Pilots Fall Asleep During Flights) – I’m sure the plane has some sort of alarm or alert if something serious actually goes wrong.
RE: Fact #5 (Christmas Costs Drive Holiday Avoidance) – The spending part doesn’t really bother me as much as the struggle of picking out gifts for people I barely talk to. I’d be happy to buy things if I knew they actually wanted them, instead of just contributing to more landfill waste.
RE: Fact #27 (Packaging Causes Thousands of Injuries) – Those impossible plastic packages that have become so common lately need to go. Do they really cut down on shoplifting enough to justify the frustration?
RE: Fact #39 (Russians Regret Soviet Union’s Collapse) – I can offer some perspective on why people regret it. There was a huge economic depression after the fall. My partner’s family was in Kazakhstan, and his grandmother sent a letter saying, “Come to Russia! We have food and work, and we even bought the grandkids a pony!” So they took a train toward Moscow, only to realize his grandparents were just as poor as they were. They ended up having to eat the pony because there was no other food. They eventually moved back to Kazakhstan. In Soviet times, his family was given a home for free. When I visited, he showed me around his town, pointing at rotted-out concrete buildings and saying, “This used to be a factory; now a drug lord lives there, ” or pointing at a pile of trash and saying, “That was the city pool where I used to swim as a kid.” I get why they regret the collapse; they had housing, work, and food just handed to them.
RE: Fact #29 (Children Choose Sweatshops Over School) – That was also an era of lead paint and basically zero unions. Poverty is brutal, and when you can spend your time making money instead of learning whatever the curriculum was in 1913, you start to value your time differently.