Top 10 Fun Facts We Learned from Netflix's 100 Humans

This is probably a hotly debated topic in every household: is there a right and wrong way to put on a toilet paper roll? Local mothers everywhere probably appreciate anyone changing it at all, but many people feel strongly about whether it should be put in the “over” or “under” position. “100 Humans” found that the participants overwhelmingly preferred placing it “over”, with 80% of them doing it that way. 10% did the opposite, and the last 10% stated that they didn’t care one way or another. Feel free to debate this one in the comments!

The show’s second episode focused on age, and put different age groups against one another to see how they fared in a cooperative experiment. The group that did the best was in their 60s, and the ones who came in second were in their 20s. When speaking to an expert on the subject, they found that in fact this mirrors the curve of happiness at different stages in life as well. People are happy in their 20s when they’re young and optimistic, then there’s a lull for the next three decades and then they become happy again in their 60s.

This one may come as a surprise, but “100 Humans” discovered that when it came to getting somewhere on time, men actually took longer than women did to get ready to go. To test this, the participants were told that they had to be on a bus in ten minutes. Then they were given a series of distractions, including snacks to choose and a complicated menu to order lunch from. In the end, more women ended up making it on time than men. Now, this doesn’t exactly simulate the typical getting ready experience or account for the time it takes to do hair and makeup...

You know when an entertainer asks a crowd if they’re ready to have a good time, and then asks over and over again until they get the reaction they want? That was essentially the basis of this experiment. At the beginning of episode six, which was all about happiness, the 100 humans were asked if they were ready to have some fun. People responded enthusiastically, but when the prompts persisted, they understandably grew weary of it. After 21 minutes, people were sitting down on the ground and looking much more depressed than happy.

In episode five, “Pain vs. Pleasure”, a series of experiments were done to see whether the 100 humans responded better to positive or negative reinforcement. In this particular instance, they were taught how to do plate spinning, and then were given either praise or criticism depending on their performance. The ones who were given compliments and told how well they were doing ended up doing even better in the second round. This proves that offering up positive comments rather than critiquing someone is a great way to ensure that they continue to improve.

We’re not sure if this is a common theory that we had just never heard of before, but in the show’s very first episode, they decided to test whether good dancers were more virile. They concealed the men’s identities and had them dance for the rest of the group, with everyone else voting on how well they performed. They tested their semen for sperm count, and compared the numbers. They found that in fact how well someone danced was completely unrelated to how much sperm they were packing. Good to know next time you’re in the club, we guess?

In this episode one experiment, the participants were given photos of alleged criminals along with information on the crimes they committed. The catch was that one group was shown a photo of an objectively attractive person, and the other group was shown a photo of someone who was less good looking. Overwhelmingly, the 100 humans voted to give shorter sentences to the attractive people, often expressing sympathy for them or justifying the crimes that they had supposedly committed. We’re obviously not condoning criminal activity, but maybe as a fun thought experiment, you can always take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror and decide whether you think a jury would think you’re hot or not.

We’ve all heard of “old people smell,” but is this a real phenomenon or is it something we imagine? Turns out that in fact, it’s very real. The participants did a sniff test, smelling freshly showered groups of both young and old people. At first, a little over half of the 100 humans were able to correctly guess which group they were smelling. But after some body odor was worked up, the results were dramatic, with the vast majority of participants being able to correctly identify who was older and who was younger.

In the same episode, more senses were put to the test: taste and sound. The 100 humans were served a variety of food and drinks and played different types of music while they were eating. There were three different groups: one listened to the sound of tubas, one to piccolos and one to silence - via mimes - as a control. It turns out that what we’re hearing while we eat really does affect taste because the group listening to the piccolos (which played higher notes) rated their food higher than the one listening to the tubas (which played lower notes).

In the second episode, the humans were given a challenge to test their memories. They had to memorize a grocery list while dealing with a series of obstacles. They were divided by age group and while we may have a preconceived notion that the older you get, the worse your memory becomes, this proved to be incorrect in this challenge. The oldest age group didn’t come in last, and the hosts speculated that it was because they got more sleep than some of their younger opponents! Keep this in mind next time you’re tempted to stay up all night cramming for that big exam - it might be better to get your beauty sleep instead!