IQ level tied to choice of internet browser

In a study that is likely to incite controversy, AptiQuant, a Vancouver, British Columbia based Psychometric Consulting company has released a report that it says shows users of Microsoft Internet Explorer have lower Intelligence Quotient’s (IQs) than do users of other internet browsers. The company is basing its claims on scores online users received when taking the online Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test.

The test results were collected from over 100,000 English speaking people from New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Canada and the United States, over a span of four weeks and the score results were compared with the browser used to reach the site offering the test, which were offered free to random users.

In its report, AptiQuant describes how those that took the test found it via search engine queries or ads placed on other sites, meaning that they were looking to take such a test, and those who indicated they were under 16 years of age were sent to another site and were therefore excluded. Once logged in users were asked their age and sex and were then given the IQ test pertinent to their group.

After the four week trial period, test scores were correlated with browsers and AptiQuant says that the results very clearly show (via graph) that people who scored higher on the test were moving away from Internet Explorer to other available browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Camino and Opera. In addition to labeling those who scored lower as less intelligent, the AptiQuant authors also suggest that such visitors were also likely more resistant to change, which they suggest would probably be the case with any other software on the market as well.

One interesting aspect of the report is in how scoring results are interpreted as either “higher” or “lower,” rather than as above or below average, a term more often seen in such types of study; the reason being that the former denotes a sense of judgment, while the latter does not. Thus, in their findings, the authors find some of its test-takers to be of higher or lower intelligence, than others, rather than finding some of the test-takers to be of higher or lower intelligence than average, which is a marked distinction.

An interesting twist to the story is that a group of loyal Internet Explorer users are apparently banding together to sue AptiQuant over its report and company CEO Leonard Howard has reportedly said that his company has received a lot of hate mail as well.

I got curious about their scientific method. No surprise that there seemed to be none. The sample was self-selected. Problem right there. The participants came there from search engines or advertisements, looking to take a “free IQ test”. They threw out whole groups of participants if less than 500 people used the same browser. Given Internet Explorer’s position in the market, one might surmise that this group was overrepresented originally, thereby skewing the results. Not to mention, in the case of people who continue to use VERY OLD browsers, certain socio-economic and demographic factors might better explain their “choice” of browsers.

Here’s how they sum up their research, if you want to call it that:

“The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual’s cognitive ability and their choice of web
browser. From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to
resist a change/upgrade of their browsers. This hypothesis can be extended to any software in general,
however more research is needed for that, which is a potential future work as an extension to this report.
It is common knowledge, that Internet Explorer Versions to 6.0 to 8.0 are highly incompatible with modern web
standards. In order to make websites work properly on these browsers, web developers have to spend a lot of
unnecessary effort. This results in an extra financial strain on web projects, and has over the last decade cost
millions of man-hours to IT companies. Now that we have a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of
incompatible browsers, better steps can be taken to eradicate this nuisance.”

It would be well to ask what IT company funded this study and for what reason? To provide “data” to help “eradicate this nuisance?” http://www.aptiquant.com/IQ-Browser-AptiQuant-2011.pdf

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