Wellbeing: Why we get annoyed, and what you can do about it

To get to the core of what drives us batty, author Joe Palca had to invent his own methodology.
“I thought psychologists and sociologists would warm to the topic, but they were dismissive and the process was terrifying,” says Palca, who wrote the new book Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us with Flora Lichtman. “Bigger emotions like anger and rage receive lots of attention. I decided it was time to figure out why certain experiences leave us annoyed.”
It turns out, feeling annoyed is a different emotional state than being frustrated, tense or even agitated, like when you’re stuck in a traffic jam, angry as the Incredible Hulk. In Palca’s definition, annoyances involve a complicated soup of unpredictable minor irritations. We all know that a fly buzzing in your ear can be painful; Palca wanted to scientifically determine the reasons why.
“I thought about the thing that drives me insane — waiting in an airport when your plane’s been delayed and no one can give you an update — and looked at why that makes me crazy,” says Palca, 58, a science correspondent for National Public Radio, who spoke with ambulance drivers, neuropsychologists and even Tom Schulman, screenwriter of the Bill Murray flick What About Bob?, during his research.
“I’m impatient, and impatient people are easily annoyed, but what’s driving me crazy is someone has the information and they’re withholding.” When Palca isolated what got his goat, he was then able to look deeper into his physiology. While he was freaking out at the airport, his wife could be happily reading a book.
“Everyone has their own neurochemical makeup, which means everyone responds differently to different situations,” Palca says. “Often, what we find annoying says more about us than the thing that we find irritating.”
In the book, Palca gives an example of how psychologists examine our response to annoyances. One woman told the authors she found it annoying when people picked lint from her sweater. That’s a specific behavioural tick, and, what’s more, not a condition generally described as a nuisance. “We later learned that this woman grew up in a home where personal appearance was important and she felt like she was never well-groomed enough for her parents,” Palca says. “What we find annoying offers a window into our psyche — though shoot me if anyone does annoyance therapy.”
The book is shot through with the same wry observations that Palca demonstrates on his popular radio show. Although the author has spent much of the past decade looking into stem cell research and the explorations of Mars, he has a fondness for the quirks of the human condition.
“I love that there’s something that Flora came up with called ‘terminal annoyance,’ when you’re annoyed with yourself for feeling annoyed,” Palca says. “It’s certainly an interesting topic, although I’m not certain I’ve discovered any guaranteed method to cure being annoyed. I still feel crazy when no one will tell me why my flight’s delayed.”
Annoyed: The Science of What Bugs Us by Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman is published by Wiley. ($29.95).
bkaplan@nationalpost.com