Discovery: A judgement call
Study finds Android-users more humble, honest than iPhone-loyalists
iPhone users are typically more extroverted than Android users. PHOTO: FILE
LONDON:
Believe it or not, an interesting new study has revealed that users of Android smartphones have greater levels of honesty, humility, agreeableness and openness, but are seen as less extroverted, compared to iPhone users. This may be because the latter think it is more important to have a high-status phone than Android users do.
The team from University of Lincoln also found that women were twice more likely to own an iPhone than an Android device. “This study provides new insights into personality differences between different types of smartphone users. Smartphone choice is the most basic level of smartphone personalisation and even this can tell us a lot about the user,” explained Heather Shaw from the university’s psychology department. Lancaster University was also involved in the study.
However, most of the personality stereotypes in the study did not occur in reality, as only honesty and humility were found in greater amounts within Android users. Shaw and her fellow researchers conducted two studies of personality differences between iPhone and Android smartphone users. In the first study, the researchers asked 240 participants to complete a questionnaire about characteristics they associate with users of each smartphone brand.
In the second, they tested these stereotypes against actual personality traits of 530 Android and iPhone smartphone users.
When measuring the characteristic ‘avoidance of similarity’ — which describes whether people like having the same products as others – Android users were seen to be outdoing iPhone users.
“It is becoming more and more apparent that smartphones are becoming a mini, digital version of the user and many of us don’t like it when other people use our phones because it can reveal so much about us,” Shaw noted. She presented her findings at the annual British Psychological Society’s Social Psychology Section conference in Cardiff on Thursday.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2016.
Believe it or not, an interesting new study has revealed that users of Android smartphones have greater levels of honesty, humility, agreeableness and openness, but are seen as less extroverted, compared to iPhone users. This may be because the latter think it is more important to have a high-status phone than Android users do.
The team from University of Lincoln also found that women were twice more likely to own an iPhone than an Android device. “This study provides new insights into personality differences between different types of smartphone users. Smartphone choice is the most basic level of smartphone personalisation and even this can tell us a lot about the user,” explained Heather Shaw from the university’s psychology department. Lancaster University was also involved in the study.
However, most of the personality stereotypes in the study did not occur in reality, as only honesty and humility were found in greater amounts within Android users. Shaw and her fellow researchers conducted two studies of personality differences between iPhone and Android smartphone users. In the first study, the researchers asked 240 participants to complete a questionnaire about characteristics they associate with users of each smartphone brand.
In the second, they tested these stereotypes against actual personality traits of 530 Android and iPhone smartphone users.
When measuring the characteristic ‘avoidance of similarity’ — which describes whether people like having the same products as others – Android users were seen to be outdoing iPhone users.
“It is becoming more and more apparent that smartphones are becoming a mini, digital version of the user and many of us don’t like it when other people use our phones because it can reveal so much about us,” Shaw noted. She presented her findings at the annual British Psychological Society’s Social Psychology Section conference in Cardiff on Thursday.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2016.