Spiked: We know nothing - and can laugh about it

When I'm bored, which rarely happens, I read a study. Studies quickly bring me up to date with the latest knowledge and are very entertaining - because the new knowledge is usually so useless that it amuses me. In the "Journal of the European Economic Association", scientists published the results of their long-term survey "Socio-Economic Panel". Since 2004, these gentlemen, including researchers from the University of St. Gallen, have surveyed more than 20,000 people (that's why it took so long) and found out: Men are more daring than women, tall people are more willing to take risks than short people, those who have parents with A-levels are more likely to take risks, and those who take risks are more satisfied than fearful natures. "Oh no!", Loriot would say. And if a woman is taller than her husband, but his parents have A-levels and hers don't, which of the two is more willing to take risks? Exactly, the study does not answer the really important questions.

Study 2 by TNS-Emnid and Congstar is also disappointing on closer inspection: Men are more versatile than expected, according to the results. They could not only watch football, but also drink beer and eat potato chips on the side. Well done. A real development since Neanderthal times. In addition, 68% of men surf the internet on their smartphones while the game is on, 60% listen to the radio or CD while doing so and 52% make phone calls while watching the game. Of course, they use their smartphones to search for the score they missed. They have forgotten to switch off the radio and don't realize that it is still on. And on the phone, they respond to the question "Are you actually listening to me?" with the words "hmmmm - ... - what?" after ten minutes of listening to their girlfriend's shopping report. Why a study when experience is enough? Study 3 at least, carried out by Friedrichshafen marketing professor Peter Kenning, fills us with hope: men are more often addicted to shopping than we thought. Well, finally some good news. Shopping addicts have a money biography (a wonderful word) and find it difficult to suppress their desire to shop. Where exactly these men are to be found, of course, the study again gives no information, because those affected feel ashamed and try to hide their addiction. Don't worry, guys, get in touch with me! We can go shopping together. But I'll tell you what to buy!

A study by the Telekom Laboratories Creative Center tells us that uneducated or lazy people write emails in small letters. Wait a minute, objection. Writing emails in lower case is probably more efficient for most people who are not so skilled at typing than paying attention to upper and lower case letters. And you can make a lot of money from spelling mistakes. In any case, Google makes good money with typosquatting: the search engine recognizes search queries despite various typos and redirects searchers to the correct website. So if you search for Fcaebook or Faacebok, you still end up on Facebook. And the company pays for it. So it's not bad at all to be wrong. At least not for Google.

And then there's this wonderful study that shows that car drivers have bigger feet than non-car drivers - which is simply because car drivers are generally over 18 years old and therefore have bigger feet than a five-year-old or an eleven-year-old. In Zurich, people are saying that in future their feet will be measured if they want to buy an SUV. You can no longer get one under shoe size 44. Because SUVs, as you can see every day, require special driving skills. And a big, heavy lead foot is the best guarantee of this.

Who says study results have no relevance for everyday life?