22 Percent of Americans Think Know the World Will End in Their Lifetime
A new poll conducted for Reuters found that 1 in 7 people worldwide believe the world will end during their lifetime. 10 percent think the "end" of the Maya long count calendar could mean it will happen in 2012, an interpretation disputed by Maya scholars but not Maya gods.
Researchers at Ipsos Global Public Affairs polled 16,262 individuals from more than 20 countries to gather the data.
As one might expect, levels of Armageddon apprehension varied greatly from country to country.
The United States is pretty well prepared to deal, with 22 percent of respondents clued in to the obvious truth that Big Government doesn't want you to know. This puts us on par with our oldest ally, Turkey, and way ahead of Great Britain, where only 8 percent of adults believe the world was hanging around just long enough for them to be born before it ended.
The country most caught off-guard by the End Times, which almost certainly will occur sooner rather than later, will probably be France, where only 6 percent of residents believe Armageddon will take place within the next few decades.
Least chill about 2012 specifically were Russians and Poles; more people reported experiencing fear or anxiety that the world would end this year in those countries than in any others.
According to Keren Gottfried, a research manager at Ipsos, respondents under 35 years old were more likely than those of any other age group to have anxiety about the world ending in their lifetime, probably because they are obviously destined for greatness but still need some time to just collect themselves and figure things out, and this puts pressure on them to rush and it's hard to be your best self when you're being pressured to rush, okay?
Also more worried about the end of the world: those with lower education or household income levels.
