In 2015, I wrote a thorough take down of the (erroneous) claim that humans “can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.” which turned out to be one of the most popular posts I’ve ever published on this site. That claim has made its way around the world in countless blog posts, articles, and infographics, but there is no scientific basis for it—because it sounds good and showed up here and there, people just bought into it.

Turns out, there’s another erroneous 60,000 claim infiltrating our collective understanding:

A human being has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day and 90% of those thoughts are repetitive.

This claim shows up on neurotechnology magazines, adventure sites, meditation sites, the Stanford University Twitter/X account, and even a June 2024 article in The Straits Times.

Buckle up here, folks, because we’re going to follow a number of different threads to debunk this one. Let’s do some nerdy detective work.

The number seems to have first appeared in a 2013 Forbes article under the title, “Got Inner Peace? 5 Ways To Get It NOW” in which the author writes:

According to the research of Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford University, a human being has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day—and 90% of these are repetitive!

60,000. Wow.

90% repetitive. Wow. Wow. Wow.

All that mental noise… if even 10% of it were stopped, what could you create, understand, see, more clearly?

Let’s look closer.

The linked phrase goes to a dead link—“http://www.itp.edu/academics/faculty/luskin.php”—which is fine as the article is more than 10 years old, so I don’t fault anyone for that. Based on the URL, the link  looks to have been the faculty page of psychologist Frederic Luskin. Luskin is the author of several books on forgiveness and the Director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Project.

Maybe the link once displayed the underlying paper on Luskin’s page? Yet, I wasn’t able to find any other sources. No Luskin paper, blog post, or reference in one of his books. It looks like all of the citations for the 60,000 claim point back to this Forbes article, so that seems to be the origin.

We’ll take this step-by-step.

First step, contact the Forbes writer. No response—but I’ll come back to that.

Second step, contact Luskin. I reached out to him with a simple question: “I’m writing because a client recently sent me this 2013 article from Forbes that cites your research stating that human beings have ‘approximately 60,000 thoughts per day.’ I have been unable to locate a specific research paper for this number and am hoping you would be able to point me in the right direction.”

His reply was succinct and to the point: “I have no idea where that quote came from.”

Okay, so the Luskin citation doesn’t seem to be real, but maybe the name and link were just off. Let’s do some more digging and see if there are associated posts or numbers that can help. This phrase comes up a few times in various iterations on Google searches (e.g., here and here): “In 2005, the National Science Foundation published an article summarizing research on human thoughts per day. It was found that the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day.” So maybe there’s something around some kind of 2005 NSF paper?

Third step, email NSF. Let’s wait on that; it might take a while.

Fourth step, reach back out to the Forbes writer via LinkedIn, Instagram, and email. A reply! Not from the original author, but someone at their firm/business: “Thanks for reaching out, I dug through our archives, and I was able to find that this stat came from a National Science Foundation article in 2005 but their article is coming up blank.” After a couple of follow-up emails, they were unable to provide me any additional information.

Huh, that’s interesting. At least two references to some mysterious NSF paper in 2005.

While we wait to hear from NSF, let’s look into another claim that pops up a lot in these searches: “There was another interesting study (Leahy, 2005, Study of Cornell University), in which scientists found that, firstly 85% of what we worry about never happens. Secondly with the 15% of the worries that did happen, 79% of the subjects discovered that either they could handle the difficulty better than expected, or that the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning.”

Maybe the Leahy paper that has the 79% and 85% numbers also has the 60,000 statistic? Seems like a lead.

So, fifth step, find Leahy’s work. No progress there, let’s just email him: “I’m emailing you because your name often comes up in searches around this Luskin number (as well as a 2005 NSF paper that I have yet been able to locate).…Would you be able to confirm this is indeed your work and if so, could you please point me to the original source?”

Look no further friends, because I got a response about two hours later:

  1. Never heard of the Luskin number.
  2. The 85% and 79% are from a chapter by Tom Borkovec formerly from Penn State University. I can dig it up if you give me a few days. I did not do the study.
  3. There is a more recent study by Michele Newman from Penn State that found that 90% of things people (students) worry about have a neutral or positive outcome. I can dig that up too.

Whoa Leahy is quick and full of some great citations. Let’s parse through it one by one:

  1. We have to believe that this number attributed to Luskin is totally made up. Luskin has never heard of it; Leahy has never heard of it; and there doesn’t seem to be a real source anywhere.
  2. In the Borkovec et al. study, they asked 17 study participants with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to complete daily diaries and track their worries for two weeks. Among those 17 people, only 15% of the things they worried about turned out badly and when the outcome was bad, they ended up coping with the outcome better than they had original feared 79% of the time.
  3. The Newman paper is similar and more recent. They asked 29 study participants with GAD to track their worries for 10 days and then tracked the outcomes of those worries for 30 days. They find that 91.4% of worry predictions did not come true. The authors conclude that “worries in those with GAD were mostly inaccurate. Greater evidence of this inaccuracy predicted greater improvement in treatment. As theorized, disconfirming false expectations may significantly contribute to treatment’s effect.”

Let’s get back to NSF. I decided to call rather than wait for an email reply. Turns out, I had the wrong email address, but the person in the publications office was more than happy to help when I called. But that’s where the good news ends:

Unfortunately, we cannot help you with the information you are looking for, since the aforementioned study is from a long time ago. I don’t think there is a document or physical publication about that study. We appreciate your interest in NSF publications and information.

Now, this doesn’t mean such a report doesn’t exist—2005 was eons go in the internet age. But if the report is not to be found anywhere on the internet and the NSF doesn’t have it readily available, I must believe….it does not exist.

So, another number has entered the common lexicon but that has no (confirmable) basis in actual research. As with the first 60,000 number, I think this figure sounds good—it’s a nice round number and has the aura of science (with a scientist’s name to go with it!)—but there is no firm origin.

I’ll end this post the way I ended my earlier one: When you see numbers that don’t quite smell right, take a pause and a breath, and spend a bit of time trying to track down the original. We’ll all be better off with actual, true numbers rather than data that just sounds good.