Stats that are surprising

[Ontobetterthings]

I came across a stat online earlier that said 80% of the world's population hasn't been on a plane. Aibu to find this so surprising?

What other stats have you come across which suprised you?

Now this is the sort of statistic I like. But what percentage of them aren’t sorry? How accurate is this stat?

More than 10% of Americans have never left their own state.

These are all true, but the statistics (the 1%) are also bollocks. Babies who were also fed expressed milk, or had had one bottle of formula in the early days weren't counted.

I know so many mum's whose babies were getting 100% of their calories by breast milk at 6 months but none who were recorded by health visitors as being exclusively breastfed (including my son) because of this weirdly puritanical approach that was previously taken to the data recording.

That is terrifying, isn't it.

I've had a few little skin cancers taken off my face and arms. I always hope that those somehow count towards the stats - I've had 5 ops. The reason I say that is that I don't want to believe 50% of us are going to get extremely serious incurable cancers.

Alternatively we can hope that they mean: half of us will be diagnosed with very early, even pre-cancerous, conditions (my daughter was), but it may not mean we'll all develop Stage 4 cancer or die from it.

I have to believe this, whether it's true or not!

And just for fun, I pasted your prompt into Chat GPT and it said

There aren't ten examples. There have been no civil wars in the UK in the last three years (13 August 2023–13 August 2026).
The major episodes of internal violence in that period—including the July–August 2024 UK riots and the June 2026 Northern Ireland riots—are classified as riots/civil unrest, not civil wars

There's also the naughty use of - are they called associated effects, rather than causal effect?

You hear things like: children who are breastfed are more likely to go to university. Well it's not bf per se, is it, which sends them to university? It's because middle class, affluent, well-educated mothers are more likely to bf, and (another stat) the standard of maternal educational attainmentis a big indicator for educational success in children.

The first time I saw this statistic, I had to check as it seemed so high!. According to Cancer Research UK it’s true.

1 in 7 women will develop breast cancer. So in your child’s class of 30 kids, 4 of the mums statistically will get breast cancer.

In the UK approximately 75% of all deaths by suicide are men and 25% are women.

Haven't got time to find it. It was a couple of years ago and looked at where all the government money came from.

E.g. we pay a lot of tax as a family (around £20k tax and NI a year) but we also have 3 kids at school plus receive child benefit so that likely means we currently take more out of the system than we pay in at the moment.

Are you sure it’s not 86.2% 🧐

When I checked about ten years ago, it was 25%. What are men up to???

for under 10’s…

I’ve read that too. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide and in the UK.

Sydney Australia receives twice as much rainfall as London.
Believe me when I lived in Sydney it drove me to look up rainfall stats because the rain was fucking relentless. It sets in for days on end and it’s bleak as fuck.

Studies have been done that do take into account such confounding variables.

Birds of a feather etc. Most of the men with criminal records hang out together.
Leaving 75% of us who don't know anyone with a criminal record.

53% of households are net recipients. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/theeffectsoftaxesandbenefitsonhouseholdincome/2024

WTF???? Unplug yourself from Fox News for God's sake.

0% of women are serving in the SAS. No female candidate has successfully competed the SAS selection process.

I worked with a young woman who was abused, she finally got away bruised with a broken arm.

I used to work for the vice squad and was shocked to see one of the school dads was kerb crawling the vice area. I dont know if he ever did more than look. I do remember a well known celebrity, this is 40 years ago, who did definitely do more than look. Occasionally he is a guest on something on TV and I have to laugh when I think of reading his statement and the woman's statement.

I had the same reaction to that 80% figure! It’s one of those stats that sounds almost unbelievable when you live somewhere where flying is such a normal part of going abroad. I’ve always found it interesting how different travel looks depending on where you live and what you can afford. One that surprised me was how many people have never travelled outside their own country — it really puts our own idea of what “normal” travel is into perspective.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country.

In most countries i would expect children to be a lot more likely to be playing around pools than playing with guns, and water is a natural hazard. Of course it's terrible when children drown, but it's a lot more natural than being shot.

WHAT??? Are you on meth??