It turns out that this story was a hoax. Mashable and BBC News have both confirmed it.
Sorry to have fallen for the story along with everyone else. But, I have to say, hoax or no hoax, if it shamed even one person into upgrading from IE 6 to a newer browser . . .
The headline on Mashable was IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers [STUDY]. According to Mashable, it was actually a pretty big study: 101,326 people divided into groups according to which browser they use. That was correlated with the average IQ of the users.
It turns out that all those Internet Explorer for Dummies books weren’t just part of the Dummies series. Yep. All the extra smart people are using Opera. And the longer you stick with IE, the comparatively dumber you get. Or, as the study concludes, “individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers.”
Here’s a chart of the data collected in the study.
The press release from Canadian company AptiQuant who did the study suggests,
Internet Explorer has traditionally been considered a pain in the back for web developers. Any IT company involved in web development will acknowledge the fact that millions of man hours are wasted each year to make otherwise perfectly functional websites work in Internet Explorer, because of its lack of compatibility with web standards. The continuous use of older versions of IE by millions of people around the world has often haunted web developers. This trend not only makes their job tougher, but has also pulled back innovation by at least a decade. But with the results of this study, IT companies worldwide will start to take a new look on the time and money they spend on supporting older browsers.
The study, titled “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” is available as a downloadable PDF document.
Now for the fun. Reactions!
A lot of people were quick to step up and say they’d been using Opera (or Chrome) for a long time. I’m going to ignore them. Let’s get some other reactions.
Oh, so many jokes here. > Study: IE users have lower IQ: http://on.mash.to/pNEwdD (@mashable) #browsers #web #w2p
Tanya Snook
spydergrrl
Hate to laugh, but I am! 😉 / RT @mashable: IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers [STUDY] – http://44d.co/fupm
Stephanie Wonderlin
swonderlin
A recent study confirms what we’ve known for ages: IE6 users are stupid 😛 http://t.co/Sd9uVYE Also, @Opera users are the smartest (!)
Lea Verou
LeaVerou
Now there is proof: IE Users Have Lower IQ Than Users of Other Web Browsers http://t.co/tWhWfhS
Lisa S. Johnson
xmoms
i wasnt going to share this, as to not to offend any IE users, but i realized they are prob. too stupid to read it anyway http://j.mp/qGmwc8
Jeff Tierney
jeffreytierney
Well that explains so much! bahahahahahaha http://mashable.com/2011/07/29/internet-explorer-iq/ #idontuseIE #imsmart
Elaine Young
ejyoung67
Like Elaine, I was ROFLMAO when I first read this. For someone like me who makes web sites, IE has been the archenemy for a long time. AptiQuant didn’t make the study to amuse us, however. They were looking for information to help convince corporate decision makers who support older versions of Internet Explorer that it was a bad business decision and that they should move their companies on to something more modern. Kudos to AptiQuant if that is the effect of the study.
What was your reaction? Give us your best IE joke.
Cross posted at BlogHer.