It's official: Internet Explorer users are dumb

That’s it. I’ve now been officially declared dumb.

According to a report by AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Co, where they studied the choice of Inetrnet browsers and the IQ of the users, Internet Explorer users scored significantly lower than users of other browsers.

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.

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.

I’ll skip the details, and cut, quickly, to the chase.

“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,” says the report, which you can read here .

A few days ago, a much younger colleague saw IE on my laptop and grimaced, and went on her way. Now I know why. I guess she’s wondering if she’s working in the right place, a place with low IQ people like me around.

But this is a study by a consulting company, and it must, therefore, be taken seriously. The research methodology and conclusions are such that we must find better uses for the work and apply it to tight sampling.

It is true that most officeware still comes with Microsoft. It is also true the Internet Explorer is MS’ default browser. And it is unarguably true that most companies have Hitler-like IT policies that will now allow you to download and install software form the web i.e. Chrome and Firefox.

However, we should get AptiQuant to check what browsers are used by our Members of Parliament, Members of Legislative Assemblies and by Baba Ramdev.

I’m fairly certain they’re all IE users (those of them who are computer users, that is); all I want is ratification – and AptiQuant could do that.