People Are Sharing 50 Things That Aren’t Socially Acceptable But They Still Do Them

We, humans, have a strange desire to appear in a way that we think will make people like or respect us more. In research, this is called social desirability bias and it is the bane of survey-makers across the globe. The long and short of it is that even in fully anonymous surveys, people will answer them in ways that they think make them look better. It’s not hard to realize just how much this can skew any data collection.

Beyond survey gathering, it also indicates that we feel a constant, omnipresent pressure to conform to certain standards publicly, even if we hardly follow them at home. We at some level are always aware of what is or isn’t socially acceptable and we’ll modify our public behavior to match. For example, people will state that voting is important and that they do it every election while not actually voting a single time. 

Mental health is another topic that most agree is important to discuss but hardly ever broach the subject themselves. So one way people manage to accurately describe the way they feel is through humor. People joke about depression and anxiety quite often, despite both being relatively serious matters. The good news is that just joking about the topic can help alleviate some of the symptoms. Studies show that even a bit of humor can help take the edge off depression and help maintain happier relationships. 

On a fully separate tangent, nose-picking. Abhorrent. Childish. Disgusting. Also, we basically all do it. Despite how unacceptable it appears to be, most humans pick their noses roughly four times a day, no doubt making sure to be out of sight from any fellow nose-pickers. Due to it being so socially unacceptable, people vastly underestimate how often it happens, with only 75% of US respondents in one study believing that everyone has tried it. 

Ok, away from the nose and on to daydreaming. Most of us do this as well, due to boredom or just an escape from reality. But some take it so far that it can begin to interfere with their real lives. This is often called maladaptive daydreaming or excessive daydreaming. Basically, it’s daydreaming so intense and frequent that the person begins to forget where they are, which negatively affects their academic or professional performance. Often this manifests as fake conversions people have in their heads. It, unfortunately, remains understudied and is not currently classified as a mental disorder.

We also absolutely love some gossip. As one post here mentions, the person will leave earbuds in without anything playing to eavesdrop on what people are speaking about. Or think about going out to dinner and overhearing a terrible first date or argument from a nearby table. Most of us, myself included, would stop what we are doing and listen in. From an evolutionary standpoint, this is an important element of social grooming, but it also often seems childish and people do not want to admit to doing it.