Are We Intelligent?

[StarbucksSam]

I have been noticing recently that compared to many of the other forums that I go to, MacRumors-goers seem far more intelligent.

The spelling, grammar, and punctutation is great for the most part, and when it's not it's usually just a typo.

You don't see people typing "lyk" instead of "like" and butchering the english language.

People are nice to each other and they get along most of the time.

Wow.

Are we just like a more intelligent breed of people because we use Macs?

[miloblithe]

I think it also has a lot to do with the level of moderation on this board. A lot of the idiots are banned.

[stoid]

I think I read an article that someone ran grammar grade level evaluators (similar to the algorithm in Microsoft Word) that bases grade on syllables per word, words per sentence and sentences per paragraph. Anyway, they found that the grade level of threads on Mac based forums regularly higher than that of threads on Windows based forum. Of course, I may be wrong and making all this up, I search around and see if I can find it.

[StarbucksSam]

I think I read an article that someone ran grammar grade level evaluators (similar to the algorithm in Microsoft Word) that bases grade on syllables per word, words per sentence and sentences per paragraph. Anyway, they found that the grade level of threads on Mac based forums regularly higher than that of threads on Windows based forum. Of course, I may be wrong and making all this up, I search around and see if I can find it.

Oh my God that is hilarious. I think that's an interesting thing to see - us versus the Windows Fanboys. Good lord.

[mad jew]

I read something about Mac users being more intelligent too and who am I to disagree.

Since I'm taking psychology as an elective at uni I should know better than to label things intelligent though - far too many factors to include before we can say anything substantial.

[howard]

this thread may give me an opportunity to ask a question i've been wondering.

i pretty much type in only small case, including i's and other things that need them. does this bug anybody? if it does i can change. i suppose its partly cause i'm lazy, and i do it when i im people for speed typing. also instead of periods often times i'll use (ellipses)....for pauses inbetween thoughts... is that annoying?

[StarbucksSam]

this thread may give me an opportunity to ask a question i've been wondering.

i pretty much type in only small case, including i's and other things that need them. does this bug anybody? if it does i can change. i suppose its partly cause i'm lazy, and i do it when i im people for speed typing. also instead of periods often times i'll use (ellipses)....for pauses inbetween thoughts... is that annoying?

Not much. It's the lack of periods and stuff that kills me. But I would definitely not mind if you raised your case to start sentences and what not...

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Age might also play a part... as far as I remember from the "How old are you"-thread, the average age here at the forums are over 30... and many of us "old folks" try to keep spelling and grammatical errors at a minimum to further understanding... (even us who don't speak English natively...)

And the youngsters coming onto the forums are either conforming or flamed until they do (or leave)... :D

[StarbucksSam]

Age might also play a part... as far as I remember from the "How old are you"-thread, the average age here at the forums are over 30... and many of us "old" folk try to keep spelling and gramathical errors at a minimum to further understanding... (even us who don't speak English natively...)

And the youngsters coming onto the forums are either conforming or flamed far off... :D

For the record, I'm only 15. LOL.

[emw]

this thread may give me an opportunity to ask a question i've been wondering.

i pretty much type in only small case, including i's and other things that need them. does this bug anybody? if it does i can change. i suppose its partly cause i'm lazy, and i do it when i im people for speed typing. also instead of periods often times i'll use (ellipses)....for pauses inbetween thoughts... is that annoying?It's not too much of an issue, even though I tend to be seriously anal about my spelling and grammar (I run live spellcheck in Safari). It does make posts a little more difficult to read, mainly with certain combinations like "i im people" - I started to try and determine if it was a typo, if "im" was "i'm" and then figured out it was "IM."

But I'm just a little slow that way :p

[leekohler]

Why even discuss this? Of course we're smarter. :)

[840quadra]

I am slightly under the bar, at 26, but I agree for the most part, people on Macrumors appear to have a bit better typing skills as a whole.

Granted I spend a majority of my time on Automotive forums in my free time online, that could be the root cause of my higher respect for Macintosh forum members. Most of the people on the automotive forums are late teen early 20's and get a thrill out of online fights as much as illegal street races.

Needless to say, my interest in forums like that have been quickly killed off.

[stoid]

Not much. It's the lack of periods and stuff that kills me. But I would definitely not mind if you raised your case to start sentences and what not...

Age might also play a part... as far as I remember from the "How old are you"-thread, the average age here at the forums are over 30... and many of us "old folks" try to keep spelling and grammatical errors at a minimum to further understanding... (even us who don't speak English natively...)

And the youngsters coming onto the forums are either conforming or flamed until they do (or leave)... :D

Or too many periods, that bugs me just as much as a period deficiency. :p ;)

[Applespider]

It does make posts a little more difficult to read, mainly with certain combinations like "i im people" - I started to try and determine if it was a typo, if "im" was "i'm" and then figured out it was "IM."

But I'm just a little slow that way :p

I'm slower :rolleyes: I skimmed the paragraph, reread the 'i im people', blinked and moved on. Thanks for figuring it out.

[anonymous161]

Are we Intelligent? I've had too much psychology to get into that. However, I believe that Roger Ebert, when questioned with why Macs only had 5% marketshare, stated that he felt that was pretty close to the percentage of rational people in society, so perhaps we are simply more rational.
Or pehaps we are all just elitists who feel undervalued in our daily lives.

[killuminati]

I have to say that I believe the average mac user is more intelligent than a pc user. Here’s why, an uneducated person would not have a lot of money therefore they would own a cheap pc. Macs are a lot more expensive so one would have to be educated to either understand that a mac is of better value, or be educated enough to earn the money for mac.

[sorryiwasdreami]

Also, we have the ability to use the "check spelling as you type" option in our web browser. A lot of obtrusive, red dotted lines would appear under our words if we wrote like middle school AOL'ers
(http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html).

We mac users would prefer to visualize soft, blue, smoothness. I really think spelling and grammar connects to aesthetics in many ways, and mac users generally care much more about aesthetics in the first place.

[aloofman]

Wouldn't any message board group think that way about themselves?

[yellow]

Personally, I'd like to lower the overall "score" by stating:

M@c5 @r3 73h r0x0r @nd 50 L337 0Mg I c@n'7 57@nD i7z0r. l0l OmG !!!!!!!!1!!!!11!

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Or too many periods, that bugs me just as much as a period deficiency. :p ;)Don't mock my pauses... they're there for a reason. :p :D

[PlaceofDis]

I'm sure that most of my posts here aren't the most legible, simply because I don't punctuate like I should. It is not out of laziness either. I do it mainly because being an English major makes me hate grammar more than the regular person, and the courses that I have taken have showed me how stupid a lot of grammar is and that its really subjective. Maybe I'm just a liberal, or maybe I should just clean up my act. I doubt that I will keep capitalizing my 'i's though, as even when I write out things in hand I dont do that ever, its one of my quirks I guess...

[mkrishnan]

Wouldn't any message board group think that way about themselves?

I'd like to declare myself dumb as a stump! :p ;) :D

[yellow]

Maybe I'm just a liberal, or maybe I should just clean up my act.

1960s voice: Gawd-damn hippy. Getah haircut! :)

[clayj]

Oh my God that is hilarious. I think that's an interesting thing to see - us versus the Windows Fanboys. Good lord.Now, now... be careful about what you say about Windows fanboys. Although I'm not a fanboy, I used to work for Microsoft for quite a long time, and I have better spelling and writing skills than most of the people here (and I'm not afraid to say so).

Of course, it may just be that I'm the exception that proves the rule. :)

[PlaceofDis]

1960s voice: Gawd-damn hippy. Getah haircut! :)

haha, that made me smile, i do need a haircut, thats kinda creepy really. Honestly though i don't always put the effort forth as i should, i promise to be better, most of the time at least (i'm a creative writer what else do you expect?)

[mkrishnan]

Although I'm not a fanboy, I used to work for Microsoft for quite a long time, and I have better spelling and writing skills than most of the people here (and I'm not afraid to say so).

But I think that the difference is that, at a Windows fansite, there're one or two of you, and a bunch of fanboys clustered around you. Whereas here, there're one or two threads about Keira, and a bunch of fanboys clustered around *her*. Ummm, I forgot where I was going with this point. :eek: ;) :D

Seriously, there might be a small difference between the average Mac user and the average Win user. I doubt there's any difference between the average Mac *developer* and the average PC *developer*. I think where the difference is amazing is not the intelligence of the Mac community, but the atmosphere and attitude of the Mac community.

[SilentPanda]

this thread may give me an opportunity to ask a question i've been wondering.

i pretty much type in only small case, including i's and other things that need them. does this bug anybody? if it does i can change. i suppose its partly cause i'm lazy, and i do it when i im people for speed typing. also instead of periods often times i'll use (ellipses)....for pauses inbetween thoughts... is that annoying?

I use ellipses all the time... just check any of my posts... :) I guess I consider forum posting and e-mailing to be like speech with friends... you usually don't speak in complete sentences anyhow... or even complete thoughts half the time... so it's sorta my way of making a run-on idea without it being a run-on... I guess... maybe... sorta... sometimes... I'm done... :)

I would anticipate that your average Mac forum user is slightly older than the plethora of Windows forum users... this probably leads to some of it...

[The Past]

Are we just like a more intelligent breed of people because we use Macs?

Nope. We are intelligent, therefore we use Macs.

[The Past]

I would anticipate that your average Mac forum user is slightly older than the plethora of Windows forum users... this probably leads to some of it...

Possibly true. But we have so many (and I mean m-a-n-y) very young (and very bright) people on MR.

[SilentPanda]

Possibly true. But we have so many (and I mean m-a-n-y) very young (and very bright) people on MR.

I'm not saying young people are dumb... but a plethora of them sway the statistics that way... I'm not even saying of them here are... but when you have such a large sampling of people in a windows forum there's bound to be more young and less educated people there. Also even if older people aren't as educated since most of them (especially ones that can afford Apple computers) tend to have halfway decent jobs where they are expected to type in an intelligible manner it reflects into the forum... I know we have some good apples in this young bunch.

I crack me up! :D

[skunk]

I would anticipate that your average Mac forum user is slightly older than the plethora of Windows forum users... this probably leads to some of it...See? There you go! "Plethora". You wouldn't find a Windoze user saying that!
:D

[SilentPanda]

See? There you go! "Plethora". You wouldn't find a Windoze user saying that!
:D

You could...

Clippy: I see you typed "pwned". Did you mean "plethora"?

[PlaceofDis]

i must say i think even our young members (myself included being only 21?) are rather well behaved and know how to communicate effectively. i think part of the reason that we seem so much more intelligent comes across not only in the way in which we talk grammatically, but in how we are not petty and can have reasonable discussions on just about any topic (except maybe religion ;) )

[crap freakboy]

I think it also has a lot to do with the level of moderation on this board. A lot of the idiots are banned.

I must've slipped through the net. :)

I regret to inform you I've been a Mac user exclusively since 1990 and I'm as thick as sh*t!

[MattG]

So many boards I go to have the "12-year old AOLer" syndrome. It's really annoying.

That is definitely one of the reasons I like hanging out at MacRumors...can always count on some intelligent conversations, and the flamewars are kept to a minimum :)

[feakbeak]

Nope. We are intelligent, therefore we use Macs.
I've heard about Mac users being more intelligent too, I'm not sure if it was a serious study though. Keep in mind though, correlation does not indicate causation.

I would agree that this board intelligent and respectful conversation than most.

[SilentPanda]

I would agree that this board intelligent and respectful conversation than most.

n00b




Okay... I'm bored...

*crushing panda hug*

[anonymous161]

You could...

Clippy: I see you typed "pwned". Did you mean "plethora"?

This made my day. Danke.

[Applespider]

I think I read an article that someone ran grammar grade level evaluators (similar to the algorithm in Microsoft Word) that bases grade on syllables per word, words per sentence and sentences per paragraph.

Found a link to that article

Are Mac users smarter than PC users? (http://www.ectnews.com/story/35130.html)

[The Past]

I must've slipped through the net. :)

I regret to inform you I've been a Mac user exclusively since 1990 and I'm as thick as sh*t!

LOL. Okay, now give me back that Mac.

[EGT]

I'm not intelligent at all. I usually get quite low scores on standard I.Q. tests and what not.
I grew up around smart people and most of my friends are *very* intelligent people but I mingle quite well :p

Maybe most mac users are above average intelligence because intelligent people like Douglas Adams and Stephen Fry spear-headed the "Mac cult" all those years ago?

I just liked the look of shinny Powerbook :D :rolleyes:

[yellow]

Frankly, I want to hear what indifference (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?userid=41199) has to say on the issue.. but alas, he seems to have been scared off..

[PlaceofDis]

Frankly, I want to hear what indifference (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?userid=41199) has to say on the issue.. but alas, he seems to have been scared off..

indeed, haven't heard from him in awhile, but maybe thats for the best. i wonder what mymemory's take on this is? ;) :D

[mkrishnan]

indeed, haven't heard from him in awhile, but maybe thats for the best. i wonder what mymemory's take on this is? ;) :D

I'd even settle for Raven or Anonymous. :D Oh, crap, looked through the history and Anonymous already waved in. And it didn't involve being sexy or showing anyone anyone else's. :( *cries*

[sourcemonkey]

Frankly, I want to hear what indifference (http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?userid=41199) has to say on the issue.. but alas, he seems to have been scared off..

after looking at his medical post for some time, i'm worrying about him.

where could I look up something about a common question people ask about medicine when someone has to go back on and they say that they can accept it, that it is a good thing ? Where can I find out about that?

i think i may have de-coded this cryptic message. One interpretation could read: "where could I look up something about a common question people ask about medicine[?] When someone has to go back on [a medication] and they say that they can accept it, [is] that... a good thing?"

the 'my yogis are lying' post (amongst others) suggests the condition in question could well be psychological. i hope he/she comes back, and i hope it wasn't a poorly expressed last cry for help. :confused: