Survey: People Who Use Internet Explorer Have Lower IQ’s. Really?
That's what it says. A survey of Internet users conducted online found that people who use Internet Explorer as their browser tend to have lower than average IQ's.
PC World reports a "psychometric consulting" firm called AptiQuant gave free online IQ tests to 100,000 people, and plotted the scores against the browser on which the tests were taken.
It found that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average, while Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Safari users were slightly above average. Camino, Opera and Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame were scored "exceptionally" high.
AptiQuant says this "study showed a substantial relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and their choice of web browser...and... it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers."
Some people have other theories. One IT consultant points out that Internet Explorer is the default pre-installed browser for Windows PC users, ergo, people who don't know how to download and install a new browser are stuck with it - "which drags down the average".
He also says users of other browsers "include a disproportionate number of computer geeks", which might bring their IQ average up. Or, he admits, it might be that "IE users really are kind of dumb."
Within the group of IE users, Version 6 users score lowest, while users of Version 8 do somewhat better. Firefox has the smallest percentage of low-IQ users, and the largest of average or high-IQ users.
Jared Newman of PC World says we shouldn't take these results too seriously, but, if you ever want to argue that people who're still using Internet Explorer 6 are too stupid to upgrade, you now have empirical proof.
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