31 Americans Overestimate Their Own Intelligence
In two nationally representative U.S. surveys conducted in 2009 and 2011, 65% of Americans said they were more intelligent than average. Among respondents with no college or some college education, 55% in the telephone survey and 62% online made that claim, although national data suggested only 47% of people with a high school diploma or GED ranked above average. By contrast, 73% of those with college or graduate degrees rated themselves above average, while estimates indicated that 81% to 84% actually were, meaning this group slightly underestimated its intelligence.
32 Mensa Members Report More Diagnoses
A 2015 survey of 3,715 American Mensa members, whose verified IQ scores placed them in the top 2%, found higher self-reported rates of diagnosed mood disorders, anxiety disorders, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder than U.S. national estimates. Diagnosed mood disorders affected 26.8% of respondents, compared with a 9.5% national rate, while diagnosed anxiety disorders affected 20%, compared with 10.9% nationally. The researchers proposed that heightened awareness could produce an overactive, highly sensitive nervous system and chronic stress but presented this “hyper brain/hyper body” explanation as a preliminary theory requiring further investigation.
33 Passengers Retrieve Luggage During Evacuations
In a 2018 British survey of 2,049 adults, 35% of air passengers said they would retrieve some or all of their belongings during an emergency evacuation involving an immediate threat, despite instructions to leave everything behind. When researchers also considered evacuations without an immediate threat, 77% said they would take possessions in at least one of the two scenarios. The Royal Aeronautical Society warned that luggage can obstruct evacuations, injure passengers, or puncture escape slides.
34 Americans Overwhelmingly Believe Angels Exist
In a December 2011 Associated Press-GfK poll of 1,000 U.S. adults, 77% said they believed angels were real. Belief reached 88% among Christians, 95% among evangelical Christians, and 94% among people who attended religious services weekly. Even among people who never attended religious services, more than 4 in 10 believed in angels.
35 Workers Estimate 173 Productive Minutes
In an 8-hour day, a Vouchercloud survey found that the average UK office worker estimated being productive for only 2 hours and 53 minutes. The company polled 1,989 full-time office workers over age 18, and 79% admitted that they did not remain productive throughout the workday. Checking social media and reading news websites ranked as the most common distractions, while 65% said they could not complete a workday without such diversions. Of those workers, 54% believed that intermittent breaks made the day more bearable and improved their productivity afterward.
36 Mothers Earn Cool Mom Status
In a 2021 OnePoll survey of 2,000 American adults, 68% described their mother as a “cool mom.” Separately, 68% said they learned how to juggle responsibilities by watching their mothers “do it all,” while 62% of the cool-mom group credited their mothers’ willingness to discuss anything openly. Three-quarters of all respondents said their mothers deserved to be spoiled, naming luxury getaways, fancy restaurant meals, and fine jewelry among their preferred high-end Mother’s Day gifts.
37 Rock Fans Recreate Led Zeppelin
In 2005, about 3,500 rock fans polled by Planet Rock Radio chose members for an imaginary supergroup and ended up recreating Led Zeppelin. Singer Robert Plant beat Queen singer Freddie Mercury, while guitarist Jimmy Page finished ahead of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Voters also selected bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, giving every position to Led Zeppelin’s original lineup.
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38 Workers Report Punishment After Disclosure
In the 2017 Mental Health at Work report, 60% of 3,000 workers surveyed for the charity Business in the Community said they had experienced mental health issues because of work. Among those affected, 15% said that discussing the problem with a boss had resulted in demotion, disciplinary action, or dismissal. Just over 1 in 10 felt able to tell a line manager about a mental health issue, leaving many employees reluctant to seek support.
39 Russians Regret Soviet Union’s Collapse
In 2014, more than two decades after the Soviet Union dissolved, a poll found that 57% of Russian citizens regretted its collapse, while 30% did not. Four years later, a Levada Center poll found that the proportion lamenting the dissolution had risen to 66%.
40 Chinese Writers Forget Familiar Characters
In April 2010, China Youth Daily surveyed 2,072 people and found that 83% had trouble writing Chinese characters. A separate 2008 Chinese Ministry of Education survey of 3,000 teachers found that 60% had noticed declining writing ability. Known as “character amnesia,” or tibi wangzi, the phenomenon leaves people able to recognize familiar characters but unable to write them by hand, often after prolonged reliance on phonetic input methods. In 2011, the ministry responded by promoting weekly calligraphy lessons for younger students and optional classes for older students.
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.
Also, if those relatives actually want to see you, they can come see you. If they say, “We miss you, we’d love to see you, ” then they should just show up or pick up the phone. My number hasn’t changed. They shouldn’t be calling just to act as a messenger for my mom or to drag me into someone else’s event. If they want to keep in touch, they should just keep in touch and leave the other person out of it.
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.’
I am an adult and I am right there with your kid on the tomato thing. I hate raw tomatoes. They have a weird, snot-like texture and the flavor is weak and watery. But anything made out of tomato? I love it.
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.
RE: Fact #23 (Workers Lie Throughout Job Applications) – It’s interesting that the survey didn’t highlight lying about current compensation as a top answer. I lied about my salary both times I switched jobs because I knew it was just a negotiating trick and they had no way to check it anyway.
RE: Fact #10 (Britons Believe Sherlock Holmes Existed) – I recall hearing something similar about how most British kids don’t realize the U.S. started as a British colony.
RE: Fact #41 (Coos Bay Panhandlers Outearn Clerks) – When I was 12, I went on a school trip to Boston. My friends and I had some free time, so we found some garbage bags to wear and pretended to be homeless. Being 12-year-old kids from a fancy private school, we didn’t have any real-world perspective. It was cold, so we curled up in the bags and put our hats out for money. I learned a few things: 1. Everyone saw us, but nobody realized we were kids. 2. People who were alone never gave money; only people trying to look good in front of others did. 3. Begging is technically legal, but police usually just ignore it because they don’t want the hassle. 4. Nobody ever looks a beggar in the eye. I felt completely invisible. 5. People pay closer attention to girls; my friend Amy tried it and got called out as a fake immediately. 6. I saw people I knew, but they didn’t even notice me. They just didn’t look closely enough. 7. I made $40 in two hours, $20 an hour. We felt like huge jerks after we realized how much we made. We donated all the money to people we knew who were struggling, but we never told any adults about it.
RE: Fact #19 (Teenagers Fear Getting Behind Wheels) – In my experience, the other 60% think they’re invincible and treat driving like it’s a video game.
RE: Fact #16 (Lay’s Customers Overlook Real Potatoes) – My conspiracy theory is that Lay’s just made this research up to get the headlines and earn some free advertising.
RE: Fact #10 (Britons Believe Sherlock Holmes Existed) – It’s kind of funny reading about people being ignorant and realizing it’s not just Americans. Seems like everyone is just as clueless, they just hide it better.
RE: Fact #12 (Suits Inspires Future Legal Professionals) – I am a lawyer, and I quit watching Suits after one episode. First, they had a ‘motion to dismiss for lack of evidence, ‘ which is not a real thing; you do not need evidence at that stage. A motion for summary judgment is different. Then, one lawyer pays off a fake witness, and when the other finds out, he extorts a settlement out of him by threatening to go to a prosecutor. Both should have been disbarred. I also only watched one episode of The Good Wife. The lead wins her case, it gets dismissed, and the plaintiff’s lawyer just says he will refile under a different theory. The judge actually let him do it, which violates Res Judicata, basically the civil law version of double jeopardy. You cannot just keep filing new cases until you win. Legal shows just eat away at my enjoyment because of things like that. My Cousin Vinny is the only truly accurate legal movie out there.
RE: Fact #48 (Americans Struggle With Basic Science) – If you check the stats, the incorrect answer rates in the U.S. aren’t actually that much higher than in the EU. For instance, 34% of people in the EU don’t know the Earth orbits the sun, 53% think lasers focus sound waves, 54% think electrons are larger than atoms, and 54% think antibiotics kill viruses. We actually perform pretty well compared to the EU, and it looks like South Korea is the only place doing significantly better than the U.S.