15 Shocking Statistics You’ll Wish Were Made Up

1. Blind people suffer more nightmares than sighted people. A 2014 Danish study revealed that a quarter of the dreams of blind people are nightmares, where only 6% of dreams of sighted people are nightmares. Researchers say nightmares are are linked to real life threats and those who cannot see are subjected to more dangerous situations on a daily basis.

2. Half of the world population lives in crushing poverty. Billions of people live on less than $2.50 per day, with 45% of them living on $1.25 per day.

3. Fifty percent of the United States population believes in ghosts. About a quarter of them believe in witches and another quarter believe that reincarnation actually happens.

4. Americans toss over 4 pounds of garbage every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The entire population churns out 1.4 billion pounds of junk every day.

5. The World Resources Institute reckons that 100 plant and animal species die every day.

6. Facebook is rapidly becoming a digital graveyard. Over 30 million profiles of dead people are lurking round the social media site.

7. Over 2 million people are in prison and jail in the United States, or about 1 in 10 people.

8. Half a million American citizens were homeless in 2016, the last year data was available.

9. 77% of Americans have a smartphone.

10. The US immigration backlog is shocking: 4.4 visa applications are pending.

11. Money doesn’t buy a happy marriage. Spending $20,000 on a wedding increases the odds of divorce by 3.5 times, compared to couples who keep it between $5,000 and $10,000.

12. At any given moment in the United States, there are two million impaired people on the road.

13. 156 men and women have been exonerated from death row since 1973.

14. A child in a professional family will have heard 20 million more words by age four than a child in middle class family. She’ll have heard 35 more million words than a child in a family who receives welfare assistance.

15. 94% of Americans fail to exercise for 30 minutes per day. A Cooking Light survey revealed that only 6% of respondents managed to do the recommended amount of exercise, though 22% did exercise up to four times per week.