IE users are dumb - new study

Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 August 2011 06:22 Wednesday, 03 August 2011 05:56

A new study by psychometric consulting company, AptiQuant, has found that internet explorer users have a lower IQ than users of other browsers. At this point, you're either thinking a) people still use internet explorer? or b) WTF is psychometric consulting? Allow us to horrify you with the first and bedazzle you with the second.

To save you from 'wikipeding' Psychometrics, the word means the measurement and analysis of psychological factors. Think of the aptitude test you take as part of a job application and you've a pretty good idea of what psychometrics involves.

Internet explorer still accounts for 45% of the browser market worldwide but has been steadily loosing market share over the past few years. In the UK, Google's Chrome has just overtaken Firefox as the second most popular web browser, a trend that looks set to replicate itself worldwide (From Statcounter). On that basis, one might be aghast that 45% of users could be dragging world IQ levels down. But one might also draw strength from the fact that there is a declining percentage of them.

The survey by AptiQuant involved more than 100,000 people taking IQ tests provided by the company. They arrived through advertisements, organic searches and links from other sites. AptiQuant recorded what browser each was using. The results are shown below in the graph;

AptiQuant has since received threats of legal action from pissed off Internet Explorer users. Because I'm one of those that use Opera (you'll note 'we' are smartest), I can tell you legal action would be pretty dumb. As Leonard Howard, the CEO of the company said yesterday in a blog post,  “A win in a court would only give a stamp of approval and more credibility to our report.”

The full study and AptiQuant analysis can be found here.