Bill Klein models a photo of Steve Jobs on his new iPad at the Apple's Fifth Avenue store on launch day, April 3. Klein, visiting from Boise, ID, and says this is only the second time he's waited in line to purchase a new release--the first being book seven in the Harry Potter series. Klein "didn't expect it to be as awesome as it is." Bryan Derballa/Wired.com
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.”
Chart courtesy of MyType
Of course the “haves” would probably call the “have nots” “cheap wannabes” to which the “have nots” would retort: “FANBOI!!”
Which is why we should stick to the science.
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.”
They are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck told Wired.com.
96 percent those most likely to criticize the iPad, on the other hand, don’t even own one (updated). This group tends to be “self-directed young people who look down on conformity and are interested in videogames, computers, electronics, science and the internet,” Koelkebeck said.
One might expect people with an interest in videogames, computers, electronics, science and the internet to be interested in a device that lets you play videogames, functions like a computer, is made of electronics, relies on science and connects to the internet, which suggests there would be a high convert rate if the “have nots” just went to an Apple Store for the afternoon.
Why does the iPad apparently appeal to self-centered workaholics who value “power and achievement” and tend not to be kind or to help others (iPad owners in the Wired.com ranks nothwitstanding)? MyType speculates that one factor could be the device’s high price tag, and that the urge to include an additional screen in one’s life correlates strongly to seeing value in connecting to information in a new way, which is basically a nice way of saying what a lot of people were saying when the iPad was released: What do you need one for, really?
As to the critics-who-are-a-test-drive-away-from-being-fans, the study found that “bashing the iPad is, in a way, an identity statement for independent geeks,” wrote Koelbeck.
“As a mainstream, closed-platform device whose major claim to fame is ease of use and sex appeal, the iPad is everything that they are not.”
Ouch. For the record: Koelbeck said it, not we.
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OK, this is mildly humorous, particularly for those of us that DON"T own an iPad. I would strongly suspect the research. But it does synch intuitively, for me anyway.
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