The research company Aptiquant, a “world leader in the field of online psychometric testing,” published a new report that claims those who use Internet Explorer have a low IQ. Those who use Opera have the highest IQ. The study aims to showcase a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of old browsers and the results are not that shocking.
The study (PDF), which was conducted by surveying over 100,000 people, concluded that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browsers had the lowest intelligence quotient (IQ) scores. The average IQ score for those using Internet Explorer was found to be 80. According to the study, five years ago, this IQ was 100.
IE7, IE8, and IE9 were slightly higher but did not exceed a 100 IQ. Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, however, exceeded 100. The top browser according to this research? Apparently, smart people use Opera. Both Opera and Mac-only Camino came out on top with over 120 IQ points.
Ok, so what do all these IQ points mean? Apparently, an IQ range of 70 and 85 is classified as “borderline intellectual functioning.” Ouch.
“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,” the study states.
So what was the point of this study? Aptiquant explains that the research will help showcase a statistical pattern on the continuous usage of old browsers. “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.”
