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Chrome Users Are Best With Numbers, IE Users Worst

Posted by Soulskill on from the reopening-a-can-of-worms dept.

New submitter dr_blurb writes "After reading about last year's hoax report 'Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage' I realized I was in fact already running a real live experiment measuring number skills: a site were you can solve Calcudoku number puzzles. I analyzed two years' worth of data, consisting of over 1 million solved puzzles. This included puzzles solved 'against the clock,' of three different sizes. For each size, Chrome users were the fastest solvers, Firefox users came second, and IE users were the slowest. The number of abandoned puzzles (started but never finished) was also significantly higher for IE users. Analysis shows that the differences are statistically significant: in other words, they did not happen by chance. I put up more details and some graphs, and also wrote a paper about it (PDF)."

4 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Inadequacy by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What does this seemingly never ending quest by people to formally define and declare who is best or smartest using various proxy measurements say about the people pursuing it?

    Are they afraid they aren't smart enough and are looking for some kind of reassurance?

    Maybe they want to make all the "not smart" people wear some kind of button. More likely, they just want to crow and be admired by other "smart" people.

    Many "smart" people would be end up standing up in their own shit because they don't understand plumbing. Many "dumb" people end up running the company and making gazillions of dollars. "Smart" is what you do with your brains, not your brain itself.

    Some people need to get a life.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Inadequacy by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Despite what people say they don't really want everything to be "equal"..
      People who are below average or at least who perform below average absolutely want everything to be equal. It's the pesky above average people who want to be rewarded based on their skills and/or performance.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  2. Re:Wrong conclusions by Barbara,+not+Barbie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or that they're wasting time at work, on a computer that they don't have admin rights to, so no installing extra browsers. Or they're kids using their parents computer. Or they now have a "good enough" browser so they don't care any more.

    --
    Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
  3. Need more details by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you're going to write a paper, put the relevant details in. What kind of statistical tests did you do? What correction for multiple comparisons did you do? What are the actual p-values you obtained, for each test? Are the distributions of your data normal? Do they meet the assumptions of your test?