This is the only thing more annoying than politicians right now

If you’ve found yourself irritated at outrageous grocery prices, annoying politicians or someone else’s questionable driving recently, you’re not alone.

A new survey asked Americans about all the things that have been grinding their gears in the past few months and saw one in two cite the cost of food and essentials as the most major annoyance. 

Second on the list of most shared irritations was politicians — 41 percent of the 2,000 people polled expressed exasperation at the recent political scene.

The survey from Talker Research asked respondents to consider a selected list of irritations and then identify which topics they themselves had found irritating in the past 90 days. 

TV volumes being too loud had been a gripe for 15% of those polled, while a similar number had cause for a good grumble over AI (14%), the cost of concert tickets and tech billionaires (12%).

Reality TV was also on the list of most common recent irritations (14%), while annoyances over parking hit 10 percent of respondents.

Movies being too dark (9%) riled up one in ten of those polled. 

But while there will always be an annoyance or two (or three), Americans' outlook is still healthy overall when it comes to positivity.

In fact, one in five (18%) said their mood has generally gotten much more positive the older they get and a further 26% said they’ve been somewhat more positive overall as time goes by.

Just five percent rated themselves as getting much more negative with age, though 19% felt that negativity increased the older they got. 

Of those who did notice themselves feeling more negative overall with age, results pinpointed age 42 as the average age we start to feel an onset of grumpiness. 

A third, however, (33%) couldn’t note either way if they were getting more positive or negative the older they got. 

THINGS THAT HAVE ANNOYED AMERICANS IN RECENT MONTHS

1. Grocery prices - 47%
2. Politicians - 41%
3. Someone else’s driving/driving habits - 29%
4. Crowds - 23%
5. Weather - 21%
6. Customer service - 19%
7. Social media trends - 17%
8. Tipping culture - 16%
9. Music you don’t like - 15%
10. TV volume being too loud - 15%
11. Ticket prices (concerts/events) - 14%
12. Products locked behind plastic on the shelves - 14%
13. AI - 14%
14. Reality TV - 14%
15. Self-checkouts - 13%
16. Computer issues - 13%
17. Tech billionaires - 12%
18. Parking - 10%
19. Movies being too dark - 9%
20. Text language/abbreviations - 8%

Survey methodology:

This random double-opt-in survey was conducted by market research company Talker Research, whose team members are members of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR). Data was collected from April 3 to April 8, 2024. The margin of error is +/- 2.2 points with 95% confidence.