While some of the things we learn don't necessarily make us smarter, they can definitely arouse our desire to learn more. Or at least help us continue our stalling conversations. And Twitter account WTF Facts is dedicated to collecting and sharing these random tidbits of information. From celebrity lifestyle to international relations, the project covers a wide range of topics, which is probably the reason why its feed remains so fresh and interesting. Continue scrolling and check out some of the most popular tweets WTF Facts have ever released!
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Knowing obscure facts isn't just fun. It's also good for our mental health. For example, experts say that playing trivia games can provide a dopamine rush much like gambling, but without the negative effects.
Even if our trivia games differ, the benefits are there. Whether we're playing Trivial Pursuit at home or attending a pub trivia night, the basic premise remains the same: we experience the thrill of providing correct answers to questions about lesser-known facts.
"You get a rush or a neuroreward signal or a dopamine burst from winning,” John Kounios, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied cognitive and brain sciences at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, told Healthline. “I think whenever you’re challenged with a trivia question and you happen to know it, you get a rush. It’s sort of like gambling.”
Kounios said the benefits can also be similar to those of playing a video game.
However, unlike gambling and even video games, Kounios said trivia is generally not a problematic habit.
“I don’t think there are any pitfalls,” he said. “Like anything else that’s fun, it takes up time.”
A librarian from California, Sarah Kishler, loves trivia games and enjoys attending a monthly pub trivia night in which a team of librarians participates.
"Learning facts so that I can get better at trivia is definitely a passion of mine," she told Healthline. "Getting a question right is definitely very satisfying to me."
Same in Italy... You're allowed to disobey an order that you think is illegal...
Over the past decade or so, pub trivia nights that are popular in the United Kingdom appear to have grown in other parts of Europe and the United States.
Enthusiasts like Kishler enjoy getting to interact with people at these events, especially compared to electronic trivia games.
She has learned that doing well at these social trivia games gives her "a feeling of validation" and increases her self-esteem.
yeah Disney often adapts its stories to be appropriate for children, eventually leading everybody to only remember the Disney version and not the original
"I love general knowledge, geography, literature, music, science trivia," Kishler explained. "I just love to accumulate knowledge. I like the exercise that it gives my brain and memory."
She doesn't think of herself as a competitive person but nevertheless enjoys getting a bit amped up at trivia games.
“People really like to have some expertise on something and the brain is very good at focusing on things that you’re interested in,” Deborah Stokes, Ph.D., L.P.C., B.C.N., a psychologist in Virginia, who focuses on neurotherapy, told Healthline.
at long last! I'll finally know if there really is an algae monster out to get me in there!
As a child in the 70s I used to go to beaches in the south and south east of England. Then I went to the Isles Of Scilly off the south west coast. I couldn't get over seeing sea that you could actually see through. It seemed so bizarre.
We used to whitewater canoe down the Bow river (in Alberta, Canada) every spring and always stopped to fish on this one Mountain tributary feeding the river. It was so clear that you would swear that you could touch one of the sunken trees with your paddle, except it was 30 feet down!! Clearest I've ever seen!
Me: this is so cool! / My mild thalassophobia (which extends to lakes): what if someone drowned but no-one knew where they were and you looked down and then saw the body
I wonder what the microscopic analysis of the water might reveal. Safe to drink?
BREATH TAKING!! I don't believe the lochness/ogopogo/the Kracken are in there......or are they?
I know it is not, but doesn’t it look like the boat is just photoshopped on the lake? I mean it looks like it is just sitting on top of the lake instead of in it!
I've always wanted to go here! Has anyone? (Well, there is a boat soooo...)
Search up Dawki, Meghalaya, India. You'll be fascinated as well. Cheers.
I disagree. The Silfra rift on Iceland usually has a wisibility up to 300 feet or more.
The far side of that lake looks like a helluva lot more than 260 feet to me.
Why? Something is preventing algae and other life from growing. It can't be the cold, so the water must be acidic or something.
New Zealand is getting close to being COVID free. :) (For anyone wondering, same regulations giving to the USA.)
sometimes fishing clearer water is a lot harder.... fish get spooked way easier if they sense something wrong, like a dude in a boat sitting 30 feet over them
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When I was growing up, that honor was held by Lake Tahoe, which straddles California and Nevada up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
There's a world outside of the United States. Lake Tahoe holds the honour of the clearest lake in the U.S. Blue Nelson Lake holds the honour of clearest lake in the world.
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According to Stokes, learning large bodies of knowledge can often start with trivia. And people who are interested in trivia can be brainy, have a high IQ, and be smart on a lot of levels.
However, Kounios said that people aren’t necessarily better at trivia games just because they’re more educated.
I can barely draw a stick figure and if instructions have more than one step it is safer to write them down.
"Some people soak up facts,” Kounios added. "Plenty of people with a lot more education may not remember what they had for breakfast yesterday morning."
"In typical people, my observation, not backed up by any research, is that their interest in trivia is confined to topics that they are generally interested in. So if a person is very interested in history, then they may either seek out history trivia, or they might just naturally pick it up in the course of learning about nontrivial aspects of history."
I love Dave Grohl, but he isn't the only artist to have done this....
Stokes pointed out that trying to retain information about things we're interested in can be like a good exercise for the frontal cortex as the brain ages.
"That’s the first thing to go with injury or with age if we don’t use it," she said.
Of course, it's completely understandable if the pandemic has drained your brain of the desire to learn and flooded it with boredom and tiredness instead. In an earlier Bored Panda interview, Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range-Kids movement, said that before we can become curious again, we have to do the hard part: get off the couch. Force yourself out the door. Why? Because beyond your four walls, things are never exactly the same. Weather, animals, people, sounds, smells, clouds—they’re all swirling about."
Lenore continued: "Ask yourself to start noticing new things. I did that this morning with a friend. We took a walk around our neighborhood and started looking for interesting details in the homes and buildings we passed. It went from a walk down streets we’d seen a million times to a sort of treasure hunt. And the big thing we were really hunting for? Curiosity! When you’re curious you’re alive again—noticing, thinking, making connections. You can’t do that if there’s no new information coming in. So your first step is to force yourself out of a rut by leaving the house (harder during the pandemic, but not impossible)."
I always like to image what stories such old structure might have to tell
Here's another fact. Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth were born in the same year.
As an Italian (but this is my personal belief, everyone is entitled to it's own) this is exactly something Mafia would do. It's something I know occurs in Italy on a daily basis. You see a quite common modus operandi is mobster would do something nice for the community or for specific people, so that the community in the area feels dependable. One well known method of recruiting in the mafia is: you have a problem, we send to you someone you know (and you don't know he works for us). Maybe a friend of a friend. He'll fix your problem for you. After time is passed this person asks for a little innocent thing like let's say "I'm sick can you bring this box to this adress? I can't move". After that he asks for more pressuring you on the favor he did awhile back and tells you that box you delivered was full of drugs/handguns so you're an accomplice. And that's it you're in a system you can't escape without hurting family and friends.
I assume that this photo is all of the lazy culprits and, of course, the one who actually did the deed
Note: this post originally had 122 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Many of these are incorrect or unproven. The article should be named "fantastic things a random twitter account claims without evidence but that would be slightly interesting if they were true"
Anyone else think WTF Facts needs to be turned into a Twilight Zone-style TV show telling some of these more incredible stories?
No? Like you’re gonna tune in and have Rod Serling be all “submitted for your approval, koalas sleep 22 hours a day, also here’s a closeup of a pyramid” and then wonder what’s the sociopolitical point it’s trying to make like the classic Twilight Zone.
Load More Replies... Woooooow! I did not know almost any of these facts! Thanks for sharing!
This person is standing at the roots of a redwood tree that fell in a windstorm. The proven source is me (although I'm not the one in the picture). root-605ff...e7eeaf.jpg 
The author was either from the Netherlands or just read a book about them but I'm not believing everything that's coming out in this post. Some of the facts were mostly just opinion (the clearest water, most breathtaking sight)
Click the three dots and delete it. It will then be hidden.
Load More Replies... Many of these are incorrect or unproven. The article should be named "fantastic things a random twitter account claims without evidence but that would be slightly interesting if they were true"
Anyone else think WTF Facts needs to be turned into a Twilight Zone-style TV show telling some of these more incredible stories?
No? Like you’re gonna tune in and have Rod Serling be all “submitted for your approval, koalas sleep 22 hours a day, also here’s a closeup of a pyramid” and then wonder what’s the sociopolitical point it’s trying to make like the classic Twilight Zone.
Load More Replies... Woooooow! I did not know almost any of these facts! Thanks for sharing!
This person is standing at the roots of a redwood tree that fell in a windstorm. The proven source is me (although I'm not the one in the picture). root-605ff...e7eeaf.jpg
The author was either from the Netherlands or just read a book about them but I'm not believing everything that's coming out in this post. Some of the facts were mostly just opinion (the clearest water, most breathtaking sight)
Click the three dots and delete it. It will then be hidden.
Load More Replies...