Most of us complain almost every day: the coffee's too cold, the neighbor's being too loud, or the weather's too bad. In 2024, the language-learning company Preply set out to explore the things most Americans complain about and which states have the most complainers.
Mississippi, Alabama, and Nevada were the states with residents most prone to complaining. Connecticut, Georgia, and Oregon were the states where residents had the fewest things to complain about. What were people's biggest grievances? How expensive everything has gotten, bad drivers, and the poor quality of things.
Preply also explored how annoying complaining can be. They found that Americans don't shy away from cutting off people who they think complain too much, as a third of the respondents admitted to doing so. 64% believe that complaining harms your mental health, as well.
It might feel good to get things off our chest and verbalize our annoyances. But we often don't realize how trying it is for other people to hear us complain. That's why we often judge people who complain too much. And one topic that one in four Americans wishes they'd never hear a complaint about ever again is politics.
Hearing others complain might be irritating, but it can sometimes be a much-needed venting session. Our annoyance can be justified at times. Like when your car breaks down or you leave the house on a rainy morning and forget your umbrella. These are petty annoyances, but they're everyday irritants that trigger anger.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Crawford says that, luckily, we can overcome our "fight or flight" response. "It is adaptive," he told CNN. "We can almost 'reprogram' this by techniques like breathing and particularly mindfulness meditation."
As you scroll through this list, you might agree with some of these 'boomer takes.' Take passwords, for example: according to NordPass, an average person has 168 passwords for personal purposes.
But alas, nowadays we can switch to passkeys. They use biometric information and cryptographic keys, and are considered a safer and more convenient alternative.
Twitter user @Escapeplace_ isn't the only one to complain about the obsolescence of physical restaurant menus. But QR menus have some upsides too.
For one, they store our past orders so we might be able to order the same thing again more easily next time. In some cases, you can also pay the bill with a QR code, making it easier for the waiters in understaffed restaurants.
Remember the days when laptops had disc drives? This might sound like a 'boomer complaint,' but for some, it's very valid. The truth is that manufacturers rejected internal CD/DVD drives in favor of a lighter, slimmer design.
Naturally, it's more cost-effective for them, but the era of subscriptions also played a role. With most entertainment now being available on digital platforms, the use of physical media has significantly declined.
