By the Numbers
Ordinary life, by the numbers.
107 key figures from the research library, in one place — what people actually earn, save, sleep, and carry. Every number below is taken directly from one of our cited pages; nothing here is sourced separately. Numbers are rounded the way the underlying research reports them, and each links to the page that gives it honest context.
Compiled automatically from 597 research pages · sources named on every figure · see where the data comes from and how to read numbers like these.
Money & Financial Reality
View area → ~$39,000 Median net worth, households under 35 Federal Reserve SCF, 2022 See the full picture → Negative EV Typical expected value of an extended warranty for the buyer Research on warranty pricing / expected value See the full picture → ~90% → ~50% Share of children out-earning their parents, born 1940 vs 1980 Chetty et al., absolute income mobility See the full picture → ⅔ to 2× Pew's middle-income band, as a share of median household income (size-adjusted) Pew Research Center See the full picture → ~1/3 Share of the average household budget spent on housing U.S. BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey See the full picture → Real but shallow Effect of luxury signals on perceived status in experiments Nelissen & Meijers, luxury signaling See the full picture → Underestimated Small, routine, recurring expenses, in people's own spending estimates Research on spending misperception See the full picture → Spend more What households did when top-end local spending rose Bertrand & Morse, trickle-down consumption See the full picture →
Time & How You Use It
View area → Spectrum Chronotypes range from strong morning to strong evening, most in the middle Roenneberg, chronotype research See the full picture → More than believed Average free time found vs how much people estimated they had Robinson & Godbey, Time for Life See the full picture → Best Performance under evenly spaced, externally set deadlines Ariely & Wertenbroch, 2002 See the full picture → ~5 hours/day Average leisure and free time reported by U.S. adults American Time Use Survey (BLS) See the full picture → ~80/20 Pareto split — a rough heuristic for uneven returns, not a precise law Pareto principle (treat as heuristic) See the full picture → Switch cost Time and errors reliably added by switching vs. doing tasks in sequence American Psychological Association, task-switching research See the full picture → If–then format Specifying when, where, how reliably raises follow-through Gollwitzer, implementation intentions See the full picture → Higher Happiness linked to actively savoring positive experiences Bryant & Veroff, savoring research See the full picture →
Work & Career
View area → Small but real Typical size of the microbreak benefit (clearer for fatigue and energy than raw output) Albulescu et al. microbreak meta-analysis, 2022 See the full picture → ~70% Drop in face-to-face interaction after firms moved to open offices, in one field study Bernstein & Turban (2018), Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B See the full picture → Largest source Rater idiosyncrasy as a share of variation in performance ratings Scullen, Mount & Goff, 2000 See the full picture → Warmth first People judge others on warmth before competence in forming impressions Fiske, Cuddy & Glick (stereotype content model) See the full picture → ~21% Workers worldwide who report being actively engaged Gallup, State of the Global Workplace See the full picture → Switchers > stayers Median wage growth, job-switchers vs job-stayers Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Wage Growth Tracker See the full picture → Premium, on average Higher education is associated with higher earnings and lower unemployment BLS / Georgetown CEW See the full picture → Fades How the happiness boost from status gains tends to behave over time Hedonic adaptation research See the full picture →
Relationships & Connection
View area → Modest Typical size of the extraversion–happiness link in personality studies Research on extraversion and positive affect (e.g. Lucas; Costa & McCrae) See the full picture → All couples Share of couples who fight, in Gottman's research John Gottman See the full picture → Depends on the why Strongest predictor of how friendship with an ex goes Mogilski & Welling, reasons for staying friends with exes See the full picture → Correlational Nature of the link between substantive talk and happiness Mehl et al., recorded-conversation research See the full picture → Friends ≈ family Friendship value rivalled or exceeded family in predicting wellbeing in older adults Chopik, 2017 (friendship across the lifespan) See the full picture → Similarity What predicts attraction across decades of studies Montoya, Horton & Kirchner meta-analysis See the full picture → ≈ none Effect of birth order on broad adult personality Rohrer, Egloff & Schmukle, PNAS 2015 See the full picture → ≈70% Couples often cited as showing meaningful improvement (approximate average) Meta-analyses of couples therapy See the full picture →
Health & Energy
View area → ~7+ hrs Sleep commonly recommended for adults (needs vary) Major sleep-health guidance See the full picture → Short-term Where cold immersion's better-supported benefits sit (mood, alertness, soreness) Cold-water immersion reviews See the full picture → Contested Status of the causal claim that phones harm mental health Haidt vs Odgers / Orben debate See the full picture → Delayed melatonin Effect of reading on a light-emitting device vs a print book before bed Chang et al., 2015, PNAS See the full picture → 64 oz The classic '8x8' target — not well-founded as a universal rule Reviewed by Valtin and others See the full picture → Blocks adenosine Caffeine's main mechanism — it masks tiredness rather than adding energy Pharmacology of caffeine and adenosine receptors See the full picture → ~5–6 / min Breathing rate most associated with raised parasympathetic activity and heart-rate variability Research on slow / paced breathing and HRV See the full picture → Small–moderate Effect of mindfulness programs on anxiety, depression and pain vs active controls Goyal et al., JAMA Internal Medicine 2014 See the full picture →
Purpose & Direction
View area → Family Most commonly cited source of meaning across 17 countries Pew Research Center, 2021 See the full picture → 2014 Mann & Cadman study linking induced boredom to greater creativity Mann & Cadman, 2014 See the full picture → Partly heritable Stable component of personality from twin/longitudinal research Behavioural-genetics and longitudinal studies See the full picture → 3 levers Task, relational, and cognitive crafting Wrzesniewski & Dutton, job crafting See the full picture → ~30% vs ~3% Shoppers who bought from a small vs. large jam display Iyengar & Lepper, 2000 See the full picture → Lower Mortality risk over follow-up for people reporting a greater sense of purpose (association, not proof of cause) Hill & Turiano, 2014 See the full picture → Filtered Why visible success stories overstate the real odds (survivorship bias) Survivorship bias (Wald; general) See the full picture → Moderate Typical effect size of leisure activity on wellbeing in the research Leisure and wellbeing literature See the full picture →
Comparison, Perception & Self-Image
View area → ~$39,000 Median net worth, U.S. households under 35 Federal Reserve SCF, 2022 See the full picture → Common How widespread the feeling of being uniquely 'off' actually is Pluralistic-ignorance research (Miller & McFarland) See the full picture → ~100 ms Exposure after which people form face-based trait judgments Willis & Todorov, Psychological Science 2006 See the full picture → Underestimated How much people think a conversation partner liked them, vs. reality Boothby, Cooney, Sandstrom & Clark, Psychological Science 2018 See the full picture → Constructed What we perceive — an interpreted version of reality, not a direct readout Naive realism (Ross & Ward) See the full picture → No study Evidence behind the specific 'average of five people' claim Unsourced folk wisdom See the full picture → Result, not cause How high self-esteem mostly relates to success and good relationships Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger & Vohs, 2003 See the full picture → <1% Of variation in adolescent wellbeing explained by digital-tech use (average) Orben & Przybylski, Nature Human Behaviour 2019 See the full picture →
Regret, Decisions & Life Paths
View area → #1 Acknowledging responsibility — the most important component of an apology Lewicki, Polin & Lount See the full picture → The exception Sustained change after a major wake-up call, not the rule Behaviour-change research See the full picture → Minority Share who report outright regret — on both sides General survey data (approximate, varies by study) See the full picture → Both Reckless spending and over-saving are each regretted, in different ways Regret research (Gilovich, Roese) See the full picture → #1 domain Education's rank among most common life regrets Roese & Summerville, 2005 See the full picture → ~1% off How close the average of ~800 independent ox-weight guesses was to the true weight Galton, 1907 (Vox Populi) See the full picture → Lower Anxiety and depression associated with higher self-compassion Neff, self-compassion research See the full picture → Near-universal Share of people who report feeling regret regularly Pink, World Regret Survey (2022) See the full picture →
Age & Life Stages
View area → Small Typical size of measured generational differences in work attitudes Costanza et al., reviews See the full picture → Improves General direction of emotion regulation and stability with age Carstensen, socioemotional selectivity theory See the full picture → Modest Average decline in Openness to experience across adulthood Roberts / Soto, personality change across the lifespan See the full picture → ~40–60% Share of personality variation associated with genetics (approximate, with uncertainty) Twin & adoption studies (behavioral genetics) See the full picture → Late 30s–40s Typical average peak of creative output across many fields (varies widely by discipline) Dean Simonton, age and creative productivity research See the full picture → U-shaped Common shape of average life satisfaction across adulthood (debated) Blanchflower, 2020 See the full picture → 8 Psychosocial stages in Erikson's influential model Erik Erikson, psychosocial development theory See the full picture → U-shape Loneliness across adulthood — higher in young adulthood and the oldest old, lower in midlife Luhmann & Hawkley, 2016 See the full picture →
Happiness Research & What Actually Works
View area → Longer lifespan Association between higher optimism and longevity (observational) Lee et al., PNAS 2019 See the full picture → ~40–50% Commonly cited heritability of baseline happiness (estimates vary widely) Behavioural-genetics / twin research See the full picture → Set point Substantial temperamental/heritable component to baseline happiness Twin & longitudinal happiness research See the full picture → Yes People genuinely report feeling happy and sad simultaneously Larsen & McGraw, mixed-emotions research See the full picture → Most common Resilience as the typical response to loss and potential trauma Bonanno, resilience research See the full picture → Experiences Which purchases people more often say made them happier Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003 See the full picture → Mild illusions Slightly inflated self-views, optimism, and sense of control common in healthy people Taylor & Brown, 1988 See the full picture → Frequency The affect dimension that more strongly predicts overall happiness Diener et al., subjective wellbeing research See the full picture →
Parenting & Family
View area → ≈ Neutral Overall association between maternal employment and child outcomes in meta-analysis Lucas-Thompson et al., 2010 See the full picture → Negligible Difference in adjustment and sociability vs. children with siblings Falbo & Polit reviews See the full picture → 13 of 13 Child outcomes linked to spanking in an unfavourable direction (none favourable) Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016 meta-analysis See the full picture → Process > person Praising effort/strategy tends to support persistence better than praising ability Mueller & Dweck, 1998 See the full picture → 1,000+ Children followed from birth in the main long-term study NICHD Study of Early Child Care See the full picture → Under ~18 mo Age below which AAP advises avoiding screens other than video-chat American Academy of Pediatrics See the full picture → ~18–late 20s Span of 'emerging adulthood,' a distinct in-between stage Arnett, emerging adulthood theory See the full picture →
Learning & Growth
View area → ~90% Educators/public who endorse learning styles in surveys Multiple neuromyth surveys See the full picture → ~3 pts/decade Rise in average IQ scores over much of the 20th century (Flynn effect) Flynn effect research See the full picture → Self-efficacy The task-specific belief most consistently linked to effort and persistence Bandura, self-efficacy research See the full picture → Short-term only Window where cramming can match or beat spaced study Spacing-effect research See the full picture → Better recall Curious state linked to stronger memory for the answer you want Gruber, Ranganath et al., 2014 See the full picture → Conditional Mistakes help mainly when followed by feedback/correction Error-based learning research See the full picture → Effortful How Ericsson described deliberate practice — focused and demanding, not inherently enjoyable Ericsson, deliberate practice research See the full picture → Consolidation Sleep after learning helps move new memories into a more stable form Stickgold; Walker — memory research See the full picture →
Technology & Attention
View area → The paradox IT investment long didn't show up clearly in productivity statistics Solow (1987); productivity-paradox literature See the full picture → No basis Evidence behind the viral 'eight-second' / goldfish attention-span claim Fact-checking of the unsourced statistic See the full picture → Variable-ratio Reward schedule behind the most persistent checking, same pattern as slot machines Skinner, reinforcement-schedule research See the full picture → Negativity bias Bad information reliably outweighs equivalent good information in attention and memory Baumeister et al. (2001); Rozin & Royzman See the full picture →
Society & Belonging
View area → Risen Dislike of the opposing political group (affective polarization) Iyengar et al. / political science research See the full picture → Higher survival Outcome associated with stronger social relationships across follow-up Holt-Lunstad et al., meta-analysis 2010 See the full picture → ~25–33% Adults who report formally volunteering in a year (varies by country and survey) National volunteering surveys / Gallup See the full picture → ~25–33% Share of U.S. adults who are religiously unaffiliated in recent years (approximate, rising) Pew Research Center See the full picture → ~1 in 2 → ~1 in 3 US adults saying 'most people can be trusted', early surveys vs. recent General Social Survey (long-run trend, approximate) See the full picture → Reject for $0 People often reject unfair ultimatum-game offers, taking nothing over an unfair split Ultimatum game studies See the full picture → 1 ally Presence of one dissenter sharply reduced conformity in Asch's studies Asch conformity experiments, 1950s See the full picture → Trivial basis Mere categorisation into a group can trigger in-group favouritism Minimal group paradigm, Tajfel et al. See the full picture →
How to use this page honestly
A single number, even a well-sourced one, is a snapshot — it hides spread, skew, and who was actually measured. That is why every figure here links to a full page: the context around a number matters as much as the number. None of these figures tell you whether you are doing well or badly. They tell you where the middle of the distribution actually sits, which is usually quieter than the version social media suggests.