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My thought exactly. Maybe only elitist snobs took the survey? In fact, according to the study author, the surveys were taken via Facebook, which I would expect already has a bias to it. (He also mispells the name of a another stat firm, Forrester.)

Secondly, they assume "selfish elites" based on people self-identifying themselves as "interested in business and finance". This is a purely psychographic correlation. They have made ZERO correlation to income levels or other economic demographics. This study is absolutely useless as a result: a homeless man interested in business and finance would still qualify as a "selfish elite" under these methods.

From the summary,

iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance,

While this would indicate a correlation to income levels and other economic demographics, what homeless man has these qualities?

My thought exactly. Maybe only elitist snobs took the survey? In fact, according to the study author, the surveys were taken via Facebook, which I would expect already has a bias to it.

Not to mention how many Facebookies call themselves "independent geeks".

Looking at the actual poll "results" (for a better word):

• [iPad ownership] People who plead guilty to sins of indulgence are more likely to own an iPad.Those who identified lust as their biggest sin are 70% more likely, while self-professed gluttons are 88% more likely.
• Macintosh users are more likely to be iPad Critics than Windows users.They’re also more likely to be Owners.Windows users are more likely to simply not be interested.
• Teenagers are over 4 times more likely to be critics than adults in their 40s.
• Critics are like early technology adopters.They lack, however, the early adopters’ trendsetting characteristics.Critics are less imaginative, enthusiastic and extraverted than the average person.
• Teenagers are over 4 times more likely to be critics than adults in their 40s.
• People with kind, humble personalities are unlikely to know what the iPad is.

Odd thing: biggest sin among iPad owners is "Gluttony", among haters "Greed". Most noticeable is the low education of the critics (mostly due to young age, likely)

If you look at the actual survey, in particular the Sin Graph, you get quite a different picture.

For you see, iPad owners have much higher quotients of Lust, much lower quotients of Greed (than non-iPad owners), and iPad owners are incredibly less lazy than non-iPad owners.

How can you be a "selfish elitist" if you aren't greedy compared to the people that don't have an iPad?

So we can see that iPad owners have days filled with supermodels and apparently giving to charity.

If you look at the actual survey, in particular the Sin Graph, you get quite a different picture.

For you see, iPad owners have much higher quotients of Lust, much lower quotients of Greed (than non-iPad owners), and iPad owners are incredibly less lazy than non-iPad owners.

How can you be a "selfish elitist" if you aren't greedy compared to the people that don't have an iPad?

So we can see that iPad owners have days filled with supermodels and apparently giving to charity.

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My thought exactly. Maybe only elitist snobs took the survey? In fact, according to the study author, the surveys were taken via Facebook, which I would expect already has a bias to it. (He also mispells the name of a another stat firm, Forrester.)

If you think that Facebook is biased towards elites, you're a total fucking moron. And this is further users of some lame FB app who think their opinion is important enough to where they should take a survey. So if anything, the study is biased towards schmucks.

They have made ZERO correlation to income levels or other economic demographics. This study is absolutely useless as a result: a homeless man interested in business and finance would still qualify as a "selfish elite" under these methods.

Perhaps you should try reading the original blog post where they define "elite" for the purposes of their study:

[...] It's only when we narrow in on multiple elite traits, including sophistication, achievement, education and wealth, that we see a strong likelihood of being an iPad Owner.

So "elite" is in this case not simply a synonym for "rich", but more specifically refers to a constellation of characteristics that defines a leadership class, including intellectuals, political influencers, business executives, and so on (as well as young, rising members of this class).

So no, a homeless man would not qualify as a "selfish elite" in this study unless he was a member of several classes considered "elite". He could, however, be selfish. It is probably safe to assume that relatively few homeless took the quiz.

You are spreading FUD and you should STFU because without actually reading anything about the study you are capable only of spewing total bullshit. Enjoy your iToy.

Might I direct you towards TFA? "six times more likely". It has a full breakdown of the numbers and provides the group who did the study so you can backtrack to find their methodology.

Would you like a more complete breakdown? Here's the actual study by the people who did it with their full write up

And you are a brainless twit who is unable to counter my argument and therefore resorts to attacking its structure instead of the argument itself. God forbid I had made spelling mistakes - oh wait, I guess I did with "data".

When you put the word in quotation marks you become more responsible for the content. Further, I countered both your argument and your lack of understanding of the word you put in quotes. Further, that's not spelling, it's grammar. If you want to make a shitstorm about how wrong you are, how about being right?

I haven't seen the study and guess what - neither have you.

But I did read their blog post, which is sufficient to discredit your nonsensensical arguments.

Perhaps you consider yourself the better writer because of your degree in English and Philosophy, however you missed the part where you had to learn how to actually think.

Your logical fallacies prove that you are not thinking. My pointing them out is proof that I am. Indeed, I have a natural ability to detect logical fallacies which probably comes from my having been a voluminous reader (okay, in multiple senses, but I'm only using one here) and writer since a very young age. Logic? You fail it, again.

Branding people - who tend to exhibit highly variable personality traits - as "selfish elites" merely on the purchase of a single item is ridiculous.

But if you would even read the blog post describing the study from the people who performed it instead of relying on the wired article, then you would know that they did not do this, which is why your entire comment above, and this one too, are totally fucking worthless.

The study offers two choices - Independent Geek or Selfish Elite, and they presume to define the human race in this "either or" manner. Hello? Critical thinking 101. Meh, you're not worth it.

Again, read the fine blog post; if you do not, and you make declarative statements about the study, then you are a total fucking toolbag idiot. See, I do in fact know more about the study than you do, assuming that there is any veracity to these statements by the study's author; this is not an unreasonable assumption given the circumstances, and not just the conclusion which I admit I do happen to enjoy. But then, it's not just because it makes good logical sense; it also jibes with what I've witnessed.

Critical thinking 101. Meh, you're not worth it.

You're saying this to try to make yourself look superior to me at the end of a comment in which you make further logical failures in your pathetic attempts to discredit me. But you don't address any of my actual assertions, or any of the actual assertions of the study! Indeed you achieve nothing beside the putting forth of distractions, the making of baldly incorrect statements, and the attack of straw men.

Although the writers at MyType may attempt to do an actual study, they post no statistical significance numbers, no methods on how they normalized their bias, and even make the obviously biased mistake of creating two categories or people

Actually, they do. Of course, if you read the end of that document, you also learn that they based this study on the 3% of internet survey takers who were iPad owners or planning to buy. So the 20,000 "owners" are really fewer than 600.

Actually, just looking at the site, it doesn't come off as a competent research firm like Harris-Black and more like a crappy version of any number of internet quiz sites. The "quizzes" they have up look more like corporate astrology style crap than like useful polls of public opinion. (And their methodology specifically says that they surveyed the iPad owners by tucking their questions into one of those quizzes.)

Basically, even if this wasn't funded by an Apple competitor, it looks like it's only slightly better than asking a few people in your immediate family what they think and then generalizing it to the entire population.

My thought exactly. Maybe only elitist snobs took the survey? In fact, according to the study author, the surveys were taken via Facebook, which I would expect already has a bias to it. (He also mispells the name of a another stat firm, Forrester.)

Secondly, they assume "selfish elites" based on people self-identifying themselves as "interested in business and finance". This is a purely psychographic correlation. They have made ZERO correlation to income levels or other economic demographics. This study is absolutely useless as a result: a homeless man interested in business and finance would still qualify as a "selfish elite" under these methods.

Is this site about news for nerds, or gratuitously bashing companies and/or their customers for no discernible logical reason?

This site is about generating readership and discourse because that leads to more ad views which is their primary source of income. You may accuse them of baiting the users to incite a veritable shitstorm of comments with a particular summary instead of having actual valuable content or you can claim that this is what interests nerds and therefore should be reported on. Both are true. Plus it's CmdrTaco editing which can be more volatile than the other editors.

I would posit that particularly resentful stories that are sure to create serious nerd carnage are accepted when they come from high profile sources. What I mean is that this is coming from Wired which has one of the higher approval ratings of nerd news out there and not some unknown site. You're free to go to the original source for more data (which, ironically, is an unknown site but does a good job of visualizing the survey data).