Study: 1 In 5 Adults In The UK Can’t...

[Mystic Wanderer]

According to this study, 1 in 5 adults in the U.K. don't know how to boil an egg, or change a light bulb.   

(My apologies to our brothers/sisters across the waters; I just HAD to post this.)    

A British insurance company named Aviva recently released their annual Home Report which examines and analyses how British people cope with basic household chores and common tasks that sometimes need doing around the home. The results of the survey, which took into account the answers of 2004 people from across the United Kingdom, are fairly surprising.

20% of British people don’t know how to boil an egg
According to the results of the survey, almost 20% of British people do not know how to change a lightbulb if it goes out in their home. The same amount of people are also not particularly adept at feeding themselves – 20% of respondents in the survey also confessed up to not being sure how to boil an egg.
While some people claimed that they could boil an egg, a staggering one-third of the respondents said that they wouldn’t be able to cook a meal on their own without a recipe.
More than 40% of people responding the survey also confessed that they would be at a loss when it came to getting stains out of their clothing, and only 37% of the respondents claimed that they would be able to change a flat tire in an emergency situation.

While I DO know how to change a flat tire, I wouldn't be able to due to my bad back... if that's any consolation to the British.

20% of British people don’t know how to change a lightbulb

Adam Beckett, the Propositions Director from Aviva, said that the results were a genuine surprise from his team, especially as the British nation tends to pride itself in its reputation for self-sufficiency and independence. He said that the extraordinary skills gap shown by many of the respondents to the survey was likely due to changes in working and leisure patterns. Now that people are living such busy lives, they seem to prefer to leave most of the basic household jobs to a professional – particularly when the jobs are a little more challenging than most. It may also have something to do with the increased presence of technology in the domestic sphere which has led to people ignoring conventional advice, wisdom and common sense in favor of allowing machines to take over a huge proportion of household tasks.

I'm sorry, but I just have to laugh at that one!  Is this where the saying came from that it takes four people to change a light bulb?

Here's a look at the total poll results:

Task

Percentage who feel confident doing this task
Boil an egg
81%
Change a light bulb
79%
Cook a complete meal without using a recipe
69%
Read a map
66%
Sew on a button
65%
Unblock a sink
62%
Remove a stain from a carpet or clothing
59%
Change a baby’s nappy
57%
Wire a plug
57%
‘Bleed’ a radiator
53%
Check oil levels in a car
53%
Put up a shelf
47%
Put up wallpaper
39%
Change a flat tyre
37%
Change a washer on a tap
30%
Fit tiles
22%

Click here to read the entire report, which broke down the findings by age groups and revealed many other interesting results.

Source

I bet if this same poll was taken on the Millennials in America, the results would be even worse!   You know it would!!  

[BIAD]

The simple reason the young struggle with these chores is that their parents will
live forever and worse-comes-to-worst, a protest in the capital will ensure a new
Governmental department will be provided to sort these pesky things out.

That or Marmmy and Daddy will pay a migrant-worker to do them.