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Are Mac Users Smarter than PC Users?

Posted by pudge on from the well-yes-duh dept.

arminw writes "Maybe not smarter, but according to MacNewsWorld they are better at expressing themselves than the average Slashdotter and certainly are better at handling the king's English than the average PC operator." Also, michael is better than CowboyNeal. Mathematical expressions of written style don't lie!

6 of 987 comments (clear)

  1. Mac vs PC- intelligence of the user by cbelt3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interesting correlation. I personally expect that this more relates to a correlation of age and artistic tendency than Mac vs. PC. While the apocryphal 'h4x0r' will be a Windows / Linux user, have few face to face social skills, and be a youthful male, the classic 'Mac user' is just an insanely cool bohemian dude who probably lives in a free wi-fi enabled coffee shop. My personal impression (after playing with Macs and PC's since they were born), is that the typical Mac user likes to use the tool for artistic / creative purposes, and the typical PC user does not. This implies a higher ability to obfuscate in a polysyllabic vein. Sesequepedalianism does not, however, imply 'intelligence'. If it did, Mary Poppins should have been running the bank instead of those old farts who could not say "Supercalafragalisticexpialadocious".

    1. Re:Mac vs PC- intelligence of the user by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Looking at my own habits, I realize that I do nearly all writing (columns, articles, papers, etc.) on my Macintosh iBook. Upon analysis, it is very easy to understand why. The laptop form allows me easy retreat to an environment of my choosing, while the high quality built in spell checker (at the OS level) provides me with a much better "digital assistant" than clippy ever could.

      The question that is then raised is, "Do Mac users have a better grip on the English language, or does the Macintosh provide a more comfortable platform for professional writers?"

      Sesequepedalianism does not, however, imply 'intelligence'.

      Sesequepedalianism? That's not even in most dictionaries!

      Show off.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. *nix users still seem above the mac users by Goeland86 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    from reading the article, I thought that he was unfair, and should have separated the unix users from the windows users. After all, they are two different worlds. Not only that, but slashdot regroups windows, mac and *nix users altogether. Mixed bunch indeed, but I'd like to see a comparison between mac users and *nix users for one. Also, since MacOSX is based on unix, wouldn't that mean that somehow the people that programmed unix were better than Apple programmers? Evidently Apple wasn't able to come up with a stable OS of it's own and had to find a way of finding a stable one. And for literature's sake, please don't think that people who use abbreviations on slashdot don't know how to type the words they abbreviate. Sometimes, people need to type fast (when your boss is behind you, or you've got work to do) and typing whole words such as Microsoft or Macintosh can take a long time, especially when you don't like one or the other, and need to retype them several times before getting them right. Maybe we need a literary section on slashdot, that relates to fiction books as well as php, C or Perl manuals to up our score a bit. Ideas anyone?

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    ---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
  3. Correlation of Education and Cost by Biff78 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to the article Mac Users have a larger vocabulary and use better English. This is expected to a certain degree since many Mac users were first introduced to their machines in high school or college when Apple had a lock on the educational market. Apple retained a larger precentage of college campus computers even after the general public and high schools began to transition to PCs. As a result, new users of Macs were being disproportionately recruited from among people with some college or college degrees. Better vocabulary and grammar skills would certainly be expected among this group. Cost could also be a factor. Macs cost more than PCs as a result those most likely to purchase them will be people with higher than average salaries. Since there is a correlation between salary and education, those purchasing Mac will once again have an above average educational level.

  4. Macs are chick magnets by joelhayhurst · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Usually the first time a girl enters my room she is immediately drawn to my Titanium Powerbook. Soft coos are heard while she breathes in its elegant beauty and caresses its curves. "It's so thin!" she says.

    She notices what's onscreen. I've been talking on AIM, but there's these little characters with colored talk balloons! That's just so cute.

    She'll pick up the iPod next, and start playing with its little wheel. She flips it over and looks at herself in the reflective back. She likes how the lights come on when she touches it and the little red text appears on the buttons.

    But I'm sure you get the same response from your "gaming machine" with a clunky CRT.

  5. Re:Article text in case of slashdotting! by cperciva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slashdot and Other Style
    [...]
    Kincaid: 7.7
    ARI: 8.0
    Coleman-Liau: 9.7
    Flesch Index: 72.4
    Fog Index: 10.7
    Lix: 37.1 = school year 5
    SMOG-Grading: 9.8

    For comparison, here are the statistics for the article itself:
    Kincaid: 7.1
    ARI: 7.3
    Coleman-Liau: 11.3
    Flesch Index: 69.0
    Fog Index: 9.8
    Lix: 36.7 = school year 5
    SMOG-Grading: 9.7

    Mac users may or may not be smarter than PC users, but Paul Murphy is evidently not any smarter than the average slashdot poster.

    --
    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid