Are Internet Explorer Users Dumb?

Rob Williams

Rob Williams

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Are Internet Explorer users less intelligent than everyone else? If a new study conducted by AptiQuant is to be believed, that's just the case. To reach this conclusion, AptiQuant surveyed 100,000 people that were found through advertisements and search engine results, and in addition to recording the intelligence quotient result from each person, it also recorded the browser being used.

ie_users_low_iq_080111.png

Read the rest of our post and then discuss it here!
 
marfig

marfig

No ROM battery
>> While I don't consider such a survey to be very scientific, the results are interesting nonetheless.

No, they aren't :)

In fact the survey shows a certain lack of intelligence of those that conducted it. "Correlation does not imply causation" is the number-one rule of statistics. The fact these people actually pretend there's a relationship between intelligent and web browsers is to be ignored, until they can effectively prove that relationship. What this is right now is simply another example of the bane of popular media; ignorance being served under a false pretense of legitimacy.
 
Kayden

Kayden

Tech Monkey
I wouldn't go as far to say they are dumb but rather they are complacent about technology. They don't want to move beyond their comfort zone and IE has been there since 95 so there are a lot of people attached to it. The point that I think should be made is that people with Higher IQ are more likely to try new things when it comes to technology rather then those with lower IQ's, now if that's because of comfort, lack of will to try new things or whatever the case may be from person to person no one can really say for sure. I just know for sure when I worked for an Inet Help desk that the people I worked with to help with their inet trouble, were more complacent or didn't know about other browsers or basic software beyond what was provided in the OS for the inet, that includes MAC users as well. Anyways that's just my 2 cents....
 
marfig

marfig

No ROM battery
Many other factors contribute.

IE is used by most of Fortune 500 companies and make no mistake by the majority of the wealthiest men and women of the planet. It's used in universities by teachers and students alike. It's an official browser of many governments, staff and politicians. It's used by many scientists, book authors, artists, programmers, etc etc etc

What you can probably argue -- and I would agree -- is that people that do online IQ tests aren't very bright in the first place. If the majority of those people used IE... well the rest will be just math and pretense statistics.

I do agree though that complacency stops many people from moving forward when it comes to adopting newer and supposedly better technologies. But that doesn't have any relationship with intelligence. One of the most intelligent person I know -- a book author and a brilliant mathematician, sociologist and philosophiser -- refuses to use a cellphone, and email is the extent of his internet adoption.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

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Staff member
Moderator
marfig said:
What you can probably argue -- and I would agree -- is that people that do online IQ tests aren't very bright in the first place. If the majority of those people used IE... well the rest will be just math and pretense statistics.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. It also would have been nice to have an actual break-down of the number of users for each browser that participated in the survey. It's kind of hard to put a ton of faith into a report that, at best, gives us a bar graph to work with.
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
These stats are mostly meaningless... for one, average intelligence dropped 20 points in 5 years for IE6 users, and opera users gained 25 points? There are no numbers for specific test groups, since IE has the highest market share, its results will be more 'average', while opera with its rather small share will account for a very small demographic. The second graph compares age and IQ percentages.... i don't even know how to read it in a meaningful way... old people with high IQs use Firefox by an overwhelming majority?

Bleh, the last 'online IQ' test I did scored me at a positively docile 66 while another scored me as 127... guess I'm a half-witted know-it-all, who knew...
 
MacMan

MacMan

Partition Master
Well, I'm not sure if this is all true, but I'm kind of hoping it is, as I have been a staunch Opera user for almost two bloody years now! I've always felt like a traitor, being the Apple fan boy that I am, as well as feeling a little bit lonely for using Opera as my main browser, but hey, if this is true than hopefully it can make me feel a little less dumb than I usually think of myself. I still like Safari and Firefox, but I'm honestly not sure about Chrome, but I am dead sure that I don't like Explorer even though I've tried hard, I really did, to like the latest version.
 
OriginalJoeCool

OriginalJoeCool

Tech Monkey
Internet Explorer always seems behind to me. Doesn't mean people that use it are stupid. Even if you don't know how to use a computer you could be a genius in other areas.
 
OriginalJoeCool

OriginalJoeCool

Tech Monkey
Well, that's even funnier than the original story!

(Hey, we don't have a laughing smiley. How about we get some extra smilies?)
 
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