Things People Would Rather Do Than Sit in the Middle Seat

3M Privacy Filters just published results of their latest survey on the subject of seat preference in airplanes. Unsurprisingly, people reported that they in fact, do hate the middle seat. How much do they hate it?

So much they’d rather have their teeth drilled at the dentist (56%) than choose to sit in the middle. A full 54% also reported that they’d rather go to the doctor than sit in the middle. A full 80 percent of respondents said they “go out of their way” to get booked in a window or aisle seat. People are so serious about middle seatphobia that they said they would actually stay overnight at an airport hotel for an aisle seat on the first flight the next morning (20%) or flat out refuse to sit in the middle seat on a full flight if it was more than one to two hours (9%). The litany of reasons for why people detest the loath middle seat include: Having a nosy seatmate peering over your shoulder (84%), crawling over someone to get to the bathroom (83%), not being able to stretch out (83%), having an overweight seatmate on either side of you (80%), and not having a place to rest your head (71%). However, for the times that people are stuck in the middle, nine out of ten are concerned with being a “good” middle seat occupant. And how does one exactly become a “model middle seat occupant”? Not sure. But no one is sure on what the etiquette is for those shared armrests While 6 percent of people believe both armrests belong to the person sitting in the middle seat, the rest either had no idea of the proper etiquette (51%), believe one armrest belongs to the person in the middle (22%) or believe half of each armrest belongs to the person in the middle (21%). The latest worry comes from the addition of in-flight WiFi, with 65% of people concerned about nosy neighbors snooping on personal or work emails and with good reason since 49% of people admit to glancing at strangers’ computer screens. There is however, a strange 1% of the surveyed population that actually preferred the middle seat, um, who? Since airlines don’t have any plans to eliminate the dreaded middle seat, my advice is to have a plan of attack, which includes securing both armrests for yourself and ignoring the hell out of your seatmates should they glance at you in disapproval. My personal preference is the window, then the middle, then the aisle, mostly because I hate having to get up over and over for small bladdered passengers.