IKEA Asks People To Bully This Plant For 30 Days To See What Happens, And Results Are Eyeopening
On 4 May, anti-bullying was celebrated in the Middle East and, in order to give that some extra impetus, IKEA has always planted two plants at the same time in a number of schools in the United Arab Emirates. One of the plants was structurally bullied by recorded messages and the other plant was complimented for a month. Both received the same amount of nutrition, water and sunlight and after thirty days the pupils, wwho could follow the experiment closely, could see the difference between the complimented and the bullied plant.
In fact: the students were also allowed to compliment and bully with it, so the plant that is being bullied will have to endure a lot. Leave it up to students to come up with the meanest things! During the month that the two plants stood side by side, the students were also allowed to say nice things to the other plant. In the video you can see how it went:
You would say that it should not make all that much difference, but previous studies have apparently already shown that plants do feel and that hateful words can only have an impact on a houseplant. You obviously do not know to what extent the results are real and what role coincidence plays in this experiment, but if you look at the picture below of the bullied (left) and the complimented (right) plant, then the difference is clear.
That said, not all plants are right. For those who do not know: listen and shudder on the basis of this story of a well-meaning man who was too friendly to an unknown plant and regretted it afterwards: