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iPad Owners Are 'Selfish Elites'
An anonymous reader writes "It's not exactly official, but should also surprise no one: According to a new study the psychological profile of iPad owners can be summed up as 'selfish elites' while have-not critics are 'independent geeks.' Consumer research firm MyType conducted the study, in which opinions of 20,000 people were analyzed between March and May. The firm's conclusion was that iPad owners tend to be wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated and disproportionately interested in business and finance, while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness. In other words, 'selfish elites.'"
The way I see it the iPad/Phone/Apple in general is like a very large, beautiful prison cell. Sure, WE might walk far enough to reach the walls and be unhappy about it, but to the average consumer (who doesn't walk far and never reaches the walls), it feels like beautiful freedom. It's like the restrictions don't exists.
Sampling Bias?
Is this site about news for nerds, or gratuitously bashing companies and/or their customers for no discernible logical reason?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
How did this bullshit troll article make the front page? C'mon editors, this is ridiculous.
News at 11.
Seriously ... it's a fairly pricey, non-essential gadget. The demographic they are describing is exactly the one that can afford such a thing and not think twice about it. They also buy many other non-essential shiny things.
You could say the same thing about Mercedes automobiles.
That's exactly what they want you to think, via marketing. You're falling right into their diabolical trap!
No, their market is actually douchebags with more money than sense. Which this article is just confirming.
Comment of the year
There are always exceptions to the rule. Notice in the summary it says "iPad owners tend to be...", not "All iPad owners...". Either way it is simply a study. Why are so many getting their panties in a bunch? Are people feeling guilty that they might actually fit this general profile of an iPad owner?
Oh, it's the difference between the Mac-owning Apple customers and the iPhone/iPad/iPod-owning Apple customers. Obviously some own products from both categories (and can thus fall in either category or both) but lots of Mac users like Macs (artsy types for the industrial design, workflow and such and the UNIX geeks for the UNIX underpinnings and no-fuss setup which reminds us of the old-school UNIX workstations that actually sort of worked out of the box) without liking iPhones, iPads and iPods (although as a Mac user I actually also own an iPhone 3G, it's served me quite well but I can see how it may feel limited or overpriced to many others).
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Who wrote this? Pol Pot?
I'm not going to apologize for having an education and (finally) having a bit of money - although I still rent and have worked food kitchens. But hey - I'm an intellectual - shoot me and evacuate the cities for farming already. My skull will look good on a shelf.
(seriously this is thing is covered in Teabagger language - are they serious?)
Or any other Apple product. But any study that comes off this way must be seriously flawed and is in no way scientific. First we have the problem of defining what a "selfish elite" is. Call me when the whole world agrees.
This is nothing but a smear campaign. Oh wait, the article says that this "data" was obtained by a "Consumer Research" firm, not the American Psychological Association, or some scientist. If we follow the money, I wonder who hired this company...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Good for you then that you're part of the elite and not an ordinary American.
In other news :
Expensive luxury products are bought by people with lots of money who want luxury for themselves. This probably goes for quite nearly all apple products.
- Captain Obvious
Well yeah, considering that, for most of them (judging by the iPhone users and other macfans), that consists of "it's shiny and makes me look hip."
My mother has an iPad and she fits your gross generalization in no way whatsoever. In fact, she fits into a completely different category I would just call 'convenience based end user.' She cares almost nothing for what others think of her aside from how good her casserole was at the pot luck or if she was a good hostess for Thanksgiving. I'm really tired of the /. mentality on what an Apple product user is.
Reply to That ||
Well the "unwashed masses" are generally products of the system set up by the elites, so if the elites don't like the results, why did they set up a system to produce people like this?
As per the religious right, while I am certainly not defending the religious right, I do sort of understand where a lot of them are coming from. The radical shift towards radical religion didn't really start until the 80s the elites started moving factories overseas en mass. When these factories closed a lot of people lost any real shot at finding meaningful work that paid a living wage. People want to find SOMETHING meaningful in their lives and since working retail isn't exactly the most fulfilling of occupations people start to look elsewhere for a reason to get up in the morning. The religious right was able to seize upon this unease and started pushing people into finding meaning in their life by becoming religious zealots.
Elites complaining about the society in which they shaped does strike me as a bit hypocritical.
Monstar L
Because it's not a rule. It's a really broad generalization, based on some subset of iPad owners.
At best the sample is sketchy ...
So, it's a heavily self-selected set of Facebook users (who might themselves be selfish elitists moreso than everyone else), which may or may actually be representative of anything. To top it off, the typical iPad critic:
So, people who like the product are elitist bastards, and the people who don't like it are knee-jerk elitist geeks who live in their mothers basement and are responding viscerally as opposed to rationally. (And, yes, I'm intentionally injecting some slant to that.) But, I do mean the elitist geek -- the kind of person who believes that since they know something about technology, everybody else is misinformed and stupid. That's about as elitist as you get, and just as anti-social as the conclusions arrived at by the 'study'.
I think people are responding to this so strongly because it takes a sample of 20,000 people, drawn from the Facebook pool who already voluntarily self-selected themselves to participate. In my estimation, that makes the statistics pretty worthless since it's not drawing on a representative sample. Heck, as I said, do Facebook users themselves have a tendency to be elitist, narcissistic selfish bastards? It almost seems like drawing entirely from Facebook gives you a sample bias towards people who like Facebook.
I just don't see any validity to the sample, methods, or conclusion of this article. Any time anybody tries to make such a broad set of statements, people are going to get their hackles up, because it sounds like the worst sort of stereotyping.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's good that there aren't any linux, err, GNU/Linux (peace be upon RMS and his beard) zealots that fit the same bill.
Become? My friend you describe the human condition and it goes a lot higher up the social ladder than you would care to believe. When has man not cared for mindless entertainment over the persuit of knowledge. What generation has not described the youth as rebellious, crass and rude? When have people chosen to think for themselves instead of eating up propaganda.
Don't fool yourself, this is what people are. Sure there are those who break this mold in one way or another (often in a rather negative way) but what you describe is the human condition. It is not limited to one country or one time period.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
What is the difference between this nonsense and the nonsense that tyrants spout? We should despise people because they aren't as strong as us or different from us? Because that's what you're saying.
You come off like you're better than "them" but you're not.
Seriously, explain logically how you are better than them and why we should despise them. It's illogical and reeks of idiocy itself.
FIrst, the methods used in polling are not clearly specified. It is very easy to ask leading questions and very easy to interpret in a skewed manner. I am more saddened by the need to polarize responses as exhibited by this piece (all under the gentle guise of consumer reporting, what could be more innocent, innocuous?) - apparently these studies also show there is no longer a spectrum of behavior. That alone should raise a few geek AND elite eyebrows. In sum, for troll bait like this, it should be served under a bridge...
The thing that really strikes me these days is the hatred for ordinary Americans by the elites.
I've heard this sort of claim before and I never really got the classification system here. Who are the "elites" exactly? Is it based on money? Because a lot of the people railing against the "elites" have more money than the "elites" they rail against. Is it based on self-perception? The big city professional may look down on the Bible belt housewife as unsophisticated, tacky, and ignorant, but the Bible belt housewife may look down on the big city professional as immoral, degenerate, effeminate, and communist. Does that make the housewife an "elite"?
Well since Apple isn't forcing anybody to buy their stuff, the bottom line is people like it. For various reasons: ease of use, simplicity, streamlined design & aesthetics, whatever else. Apple has passed Microsoft in market value, and had a string of successes over the last decade: iPod, iPod market, iPhone, iPad. Chalking that up to a few fashion seeking clueless posers is disingenuous.
What I can't figure out are people who keep thinking the rest of the population actually cares about the limits that Apple imposes. Apple has sold millions of devices. The market has spoken, the vast majority simply doesn't care, and if other companies had more of a clue and design skills, they'd compete. Maybe those other companies are staffed with people with their heads buried in the sand, refusing to consider "freedom to experiment and innovate" just isn't that high on the priority list of 90% of the customer base.
I can't believe there are still so many people who haven't figured out what Apple's geriatric target group really was...
- These characters were randomly selected.
Do some research on tax breaks from charitable donations before throwing that shit around.
Long story short: You don't "make" anything giving money to charity. Donating money isn't some sort of con into not paying taxes and ultimately saving money. You give to charity and you pay taxes. Sometimes, you lower your tax bracket by deducting donations.
I'm not sure when liking a product that meets your needs turned you into some sort of fanboy deserving of an epithet, but it's sort of sad. I use a Mac ( a 5 year old one at that, but it suits my needs as a developer to have a UNIX machine with a good user interface and still be able to play an MMO game once in a blue moon). I also have an iPad, and I really like it for surfing on the couch. It's not that I have more money than sense, it's just that I like it, and I have enough money to buy it, so why shouldn't I? I use a Nokia N900 too, does that make me a socialist? I like Diet Coke, does that make me a shill for a sugar water company hellbent on making Americans fat and complacent? Maybe so, but somehow that's not how I identify myself.
People can be independent thinkers. Buying a product doesn't force you to assume a company's brand identity as your own.
- Vincit qui patitur.
That there isn't a way to moderate an entire post as flamebait.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
> Nearly every Apple *fan* that I've met
> has been a pretentious prick.
Congratulations, you've derived the definition of the word "fan", short for "fanatic." Owner != fan. Most sports fans are pricks, too, at least when it comes to "their" team.* Same with Ford/Chevy fans and all the rest. At least Apple fans have some class--I've yet to see an iPad with a decal of Calvin peeing on a tablet PC.
Back on topic, this article is absolute trollish bullshit--nothing more than a generalization. I can guarantee you that my 62 year old mom, 54 year old aunt, and 76 year old neighbor (all Apple users, one iPad (so far) among those three) are neither selfish nor elitist. What's next, a front-page Slashdot story proclaiming that Windows users are all mouth-breathing lusers and Linux users are either arrogant greybeards or basement-dwelling loners?
* hey, at least Apple fans do something with what they're fanatical about. Ooh, you paid money to go sit in a stadium and yell at a bunch of millionaires who wouldn't give a shit if you died in the stands? Good for you.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Huh? Just what "experiment and innovate" activities are in question, here?
Setting aside the over-generalization of people merely seeking social status and "pretty hardware," just what are people who use an iPad giving up? The only thing that comes to mind off the bat is viewing Flash. Small inconvenience, rarely miss it. I'm sorry, but the image of people using a tablet computer to browse the web, read e-mail and play games actually being interested in "experimenting and innovating" is just silly. People who want that are on their desktop, writing code. Trust me, the Apple development environment provides tons of room to experiment and innovate--but again, that's irrelevant because we're talking about iPad users, not developers. Apples (if you'll pardon the expression) and oranges.
"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline." - Frank Zappa
People can have kind words and yet do nothing because they barely have the means to help themselves. In other cases, these "have nots" just have different priorities and spend their money on their vehicles instead leaving very little for anything else.
It could be that people who are well off simply don't talk about being altruistic and kind but rather put their will into action by helping others either through volunteering or donations. Not everyone feels the need to list off all of the good that they do because they have no interest in seeking the praise or approval of men.
You can answer a study to appear altruistic and kind and yet being either unable or unwilling to help others.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
How do you accurately measure somebody's altruism? Some experts say that such a characteristic does not actually exist. How do you accurately measure somebody's selfishness, or elitism?
If you test people on their opinions of themselves, would those opinions typically match the opinions that other people hold of the tested people?
If somebody was truly humble, would that person call his/her self "humble?"
Does Bill Gates consider himself to be a rotten bastard? Is Bill Gates a rotten bastard? I mean, can such a characteristic be objectively decided by anybody, much less the person his/her self?
Webkit on a mobile phone is what prompted me to buy my first smartphone, and I couldn't be happier that I did. Webkit is the rendering engine on the iphone. Almost every other smartphone has followed suit and is now using webkit. Tell me how this isn't innovation? Yes it is worth $700 and the data plan to go with it.
I haven't seen any iPad users mention anything at all about altruism and kindness in their attempts to refute the "selfish elites" tag.
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
A family that needs 6 separate "consumption" devices is a sad thing.
Just imagine the lot of them each hiding from the rest in their own corner of the McMansion.
Although that does address the lack of multi-user awareness on an iThing.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
6 iPads is about $3000. A nice HDTV-centered home theater can easily cost as much.
I think you missed my point entirely. The average family does *not* spend $3000 on *either* a "nice HDTV-centered home theater" OR 6 iPads. The average family buys a 42" HDTV from Walmart for $500 and has either a dish or cable hooked up to it.
You replied to a post that implied that mostly the rich are buying iPads.
In your post you seemed to be offering a counter point to that - but in doing so you seemed to reinforce his point (and the summary)*and* you seemed to say that *your* household usage was in fact normal and not unusual. This is where you swerved into "self parody" and "lack of insight".
Both are for "consumption"; one is portable.
The average person would never use the term "consumption" when describing the use of an entertainment device. Again you showed here that you are far from average personally, apart from iPad ownership issues.
Some of us, having such disposable income,
There is a recession going on - what percentage of American families do you think are blowing money on multiple iPads? I'm guessing it is in the .005% range.
You spend your money your way, I'll spend mine my way. Neither is evil based only on size/quantity of screens.
Again you misunderstand my point. I am *not* a liberal. I have no interest whatsoever in how you choose to spend *your* money. You earned it - you spend it.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
You clearly suck at logic.
"wealthy, sophisticated, (and) highly educated" = elite.
"while they scored terribly in the areas of altruism and kindness" = selfish.
Nice try though.