A child's laugh and an adult's gullibility

A child laughs 400 times a day, but adults only 15.

This is one of those factoids that is brought up in discussions of well-being, thrown about via email and repeated in columns and books. I heard it tonight during a presentation on 'humour in the workplace'. Invariably, the message is that we adults take things too seriously and need to lighten up a little. That something happened to us to make us lose that joy for life.

I have a different interpretation.

Personally, I think it all comes down to this. We've heard the joke before.

For the kids, the world is brand new. Everything is being seen and experienced for the first time and it's awfully hilarious. We adults are going through our umpteen thousandth repetition of events, and it just isn't as amusing as it was the first time.

- - -

Actually, come to think of it – the factoid seems way out of whack. Kids would have to be laughing once every 100 seconds to fill that quota. What kid laughs every other minute?

Let me Google this and see what comes up...

one dozen googles later

...it would seem that there is no actual research or evidence to back this factoid. What's even more interesting is that the factoid began with the kids laughing 150 times a day, and has slowly inflated to 400 times a day. My searches also turned up sites quoting 500 times a day. 500 times! That would have these children laughing once a minute, every minute, for 12 hours a day. Yet this factoid is continues to make the rounds.

How ridiculously high does the number have to reach before people actually question the factoid?