Itching Proven To Be Contagious

Remember when you were in school, and in science or health class? The teacher would talk about the symptoms of a disease, and all of a sudden you would feel like you had most of those symptoms? Obviously you didn't, but you thought you did. Well, when someone else has an itch, you have an itch. This one is true and it's been scientifically proven.

Scientists have actually confirmed that viewing somebody itch makes a person more likely to itch themselves. I've had that happen.

Researchers at Wake Forest University had 25 volunteers watch a five minute video of a person either scratching their arm or sitting idly. As the videos played, the volunteers who were looking at the images of scratching were twice as likely to start scratching, as well. Don't worry, I didn't post the video, so you don't have to scratch. There's a report at Telegraph UK.

Our impulse to mimic the itching of others may have evolved as a way to prevent parasitic infestations from jumping from person to person, suggest the researchers.

In case you're wondering, science has previously confirmed that yawning is also contagious.

This could be an April Fool's joke, or your own scientific research. While you're sitting at your work area, start to scratch your arm. Then watch to see if your coworkers start scratching too. Let us know if it worked.