Do you ever wonder how you stack up to others? For example, in North America, if you are a male who is taller than 5'9 or women taller than 5'3 then you're above average. And if you weigh less than 88.3 kg and 74.7 kg then you're below average. Worldwide, however, humans actually weigh 62 kg on average. If you read less than 12 books a year, you're below average. But avid readers like likely inflate this number with 4 books per year being the most common number reported. And if you can read faster than 300 words per minute, you're above average. Type more than 40 words per minute and you're also faster than the majority. If you finish a bachelor's degree or higher, you're above average. But if you don't finish high school and you're from industrialized nation, you're far below average with only about 10% not finishing. If you're a man who can benchpress more than 135 lbs, you're stronger than many. And if you're a woman who can run a mile in less than 7 to 10 minutes, you're faster than the others. If that tires you out and you sleep more than 6.8 hrs, you're getting more than majority. And if to wake up you're drinking less than 3 cups of coffee per day, you're below average. Still thirsty? Most people drink 3 to 4 cups of water a day. Too much fluid make you pee? If you're urinating less than 6 times a day, you're below average. And if you have more than one bowel movement today, you're probably above average based on surveys. But these are not necessarily reasons for concern. The average person farts around 14 times a day which is around 500 to 1500 ml Have a family? If you end up having more than two kids in your lifetime in most Europe and North America, you're above average. But if you have less than 6 children in Niger, you're below average. And if you're watching more than 5 hours and 4 mins of TV each day, that's more than most. That's the same amount of time the average spends on their mobile service. But if you're a teen and spending less than 9 hours on media, you're actually under the average. The average person also simply touches their phone over 2000 times a day. Think you're smarter than the average person or better at driving? How about having better health, memory or being a better friend than the average person. Turns out the vast majority of people also think they're better than average in a phenomenon called Illusory Superiority. It's a cognitive bias where people overestimate their own abilities and qualities with one study revealing 87% of students at a university surveyed rated their academic performance above the median. Interestingly, people with lower IQs tend to overestimate their IQ, while who actually have above-average IQs tend to underestimate them. Men are also more likely to overestimate their IQ by 5 points, while women underestimate theirs. Perhaps most shocking is that in cognitive test, even the lowest scoring groups predict they're above average showing a strong illusion. And researchers believe it because those worst at the test are also worse at understanding the skills required to do it well. This paper actually won a Nobel Prize in 2000. In the words of Charles Bukowski, "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence".
