[lbo-talk] Administrivia ...

Mike Beggs mikejbeggs at gmail.com
Tue Aug 2 21:54:57 PDT 2011


On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:42 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:


> Good try. :-) But I think we should fork this to Chrome vs Firefox, because that can lead into the good and bad of open source and whether leftists should embrace it or not… and who knows what else!

Surely this little study should settle that one for now and all time:

http://www.aptiquant.com/IQ-Browser-AptiQuant-2011.pdf

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage: Measuring the Effects of Cognitive Ability on the Choice of Web Browser

Although observational findings linking resistance to change/upgrade software to scores on cognitive tests maybe distorted by a lot of factors, it has been suggested that individuals on the lower end of the IQ scale tend to keep using outdated versions of antique web browsers. Because cognitive scores are related to techsavviness, we hypothesized that choice of web browser is related to cognitive ability of an individual. We used detailed data from a trial to calculate the IQ scores of people using a variety of different browsers. A Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test was given to over 100,000 people over a period of four weeks. The subjects mostly came to our website from search engines looking to take an IQ Test. All the subjects were from English speaking countries. A significant number of individuals with a low score on the cognitive test were found to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) versions 6.0 to 9.0. There was no significant difference in the IQ scores between individuals using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari; however, it was on an average higher than IE users. Individuals using Opera, Camino and IE with Chrome Frame scored a little higher on an average than others. These data support the hypothesis that the IQ score and the choice of web browser are related. Our data have important implications and identify reasons behind the continuous use of outdated browsers, that has been bugging the web developers and IT companies since the last decade.

Mike



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