‘What are common misconceptions people could benefit from understanding?’ – 21 things we’re all getting very wrong

Despite having all of the knowledge in the whole world in our literal hands in the form of a smartphone, there are still a lot of things that we still struggle to understand.

They’ve been chatting about our chronic inability to figure the easy stuff out on the AskUK subreddit after Proper_Emu_2296 posted this:

What are common misconceptions people could benefit from understanding?

I just read an article about a woman who can’t afford to eat because her son’s medical equipment uses so much energy. And it mentioned too that she goes round turning the lights off. That broke my heart because the average lightbulb costs about £3 a *year* to run.

No matter how bad things get please don’t make it worse by sitting in the dark. It seems a common misconception that lights use a lot more energy than they do.

What other misconceptions do people possibly waste time and peace on?

Plenty of people helpfully chipped in with their thoughts on the stuff we’re getting uneccessarily muddled about, like these…

1.

‘I’ve heard people say that they’d turn down pay rises as it puts them into the higher income tax bracket and they believe they would be worse off due to the taxes. It’s 20% from £12.5k – £50k then the 40% tax is applied to only the earnings from £50k – £125k. You don’t start paying 40% on everything once you go above £50k.’
–Sackyhap

2.

‘Some people seem to think that poor people have taken all their money, whereas actually, it’s the rich people.’
–WelcometotheZhongguo

3.

‘You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic.’
–Alas_boris

4.

‘I often had flatmates not wanting to use a dishwasher because they presume it uses loads of water, or not wanting to run it until it’s absolutely overloaded with stuff to the point of not cleaning properly.

Once you have more than 5~ items to wash, a modern dishwasher is usually more efficient than hand washing.’
–TepacheLoco

5.

‘I work as a bus driver. A lot of passengers seem to think that we run late just to piss them off, or because we simply don’t care. 99% of the time it’s because the running times for that route or time of day aren’t sufficient, or that we’ve encountered severe traffic / roadworks somewhere. I get the frustration but believe me, I want to be on time as much as you do!’
–JoeDougieD

6.

‘Marmite can be just alright as a flavour.’
–Delicious_Bet_6336

7.

‘Relevant at the moment, but it’s not high temperature that burns you on sunny days but high UV. UV is usually higher on a 15c sunny day in late May than a 40c sunny day in August. The main difference is you’re more likely to have more skin exposed if it’s hotter.’
–jaymatthewbee

8.

‘Healthcare appointments are running late because the staff are – slow, lazy, having a break etc, etc. Usually it’s because they don’t have long enough slots to do a good job with each patient. Some patients take 5 minutes, some take 45. Wouldn’t you rather we take the time when we should, rather than saying “sorry, times up.”’
–FlamingosFortune

9.

‘That watching the news and staying up to date with current affairs is important and indeed your civic duty. Whereas in reality it’s simply depressing, scaremongering, and your life if better without it.’
–_thatsthewayshegoes

10.

‘Ambulatory wheelchair users exist (people who can walk short distances, often with difficulty, but still use wheelchairs as a mobility tool) Ditto mobility scooters. So many still think that seeing somebody leave their wheelchair is a “gotcha!” moment.

Also invisible disability exists! You can’t always tell from looking at somebody. I need a mobility scooter for any proper distance but if I was to walk across a room my gait is pretty normal and I don’t look like I’m struggling. But walking just 50m can leave me bed bound.’
–RaspberryJammm

11.

‘Waiting to be seen in A&E can suck some serious arse, but it beats not being the person who’s being rushed to be seen as quickly as possible.’
–rabidrob42

12.

‘HS2 isn’t about getting to Birmingham 20 minutes faster, it’s about freeing up capacity on the West Coast Mainline, Europe’s most congested mainline railway, so that we can run more freight trains along there, take lorries off the M1 as a result, as well as taking coaches off because now there’s capacity to run more frequent and higher quality intercity and local trains along each line respectively.

All of this will drastically improve environmental concerns, as well as improve service significantly on the most important transport corridor in the country. The 20 mins faster is just a bonus.’
–ALA02