CNN Money claims Android users are dumber
In one of those reports that make you remember that Yahoo still exists, a clickbait CNN Money piece from last week claimed that the Chitika Network (the people who replaced Yahoo’s ad networks) said that iPhone users are more likely to be educated than their Android counterparts.
ORLY? That’s what CNN Money seems to think as they lead off their article with “Are you an iPhone user? Congratulations! You’re probably smarter than the Android owner sitting next to you.“.
The Chitika white paper on the subject (which CNN Money based their piece on) tends to indicate that the more educated areas of the country tend to have greater numbers of iPhones that are displaying advertising from the Chitika networks during a small window of time. This is a pretty far cry from “heh you Android guys are teh dumb“. They also only mention the next most popular phone manufacturer Samsung.
If this were an iOS vs. Android piece, the counter could of course be claimed that the more educated Android users are more likely to have installed advertiser-blocking software which would render them invisible to the study, or use anonymizing proxies such as the TOR network to place them away from the locations they actually were, perhaps not click through the ads, or maybe they just don’t deal with sites that use Chitika as an advertising network.
However, it’s worth noting that nowhere in the Chitika white paper does it claim that Android users are less intelligent, just that more iPhone users displaying advertising on their network than other phone users come from areas where higher educated people generally are located. It’s also important to note that the study took place over a single week from December 25-31, 2014.
Other conclusions CNN Money could have made than that an Android user are less intelligent include:
- iPhone users don’t have the money to go home to visit family due to cost of iPhone, therefor stay at home during Christmas. I kid.
- Websites that use the Chitika network more likely to host content that appeals to iOS users than Android.
- CNN Money simply likes writing click bait with the lead-off of “Are you an iPhone user? Congratulations! You’re probably smarter than the Android owner sitting next to you.” (no really, this is what they wrote).
- Education system geared toward iOS still, people in the education system find it easier to just go along.
- Since other phones are mentioned and make up the majority of their advertising impressions, this could correlate with more of a split between Windows and Android phones in more educated areas as people who were inclined to try Apple alternatives were more likely to attempt a Windows or Blackberry device.
- College educated Android users wealthier, able to stay on Christmas vacation longer, all in the Caribbean on Koush’s yacht fleet watching the ball drop on New Years Eve while iOS people stuck in the snow and cold in closed-down college towns.
Whatever the conclusion, these results are specific to the Chitika network until we hear from other advertising networks. The results are that more iOS users displayed ads on the Chitika network from Christmas through New Year’s Eve in the towns that are associated with higher college graduation rates.
As December 25-21 are not normal days you can extrapolate a year’s worth of advertising insight out of , or even most of the year, the study’s results are probably pretty much good for a week or two timeframe once a year.
So, probably not Chitika saying Android users are dumb, looks a bit more like a highly targeted timeframe claims Android users, which make up the majority of advertising impressions (54%) are less likely to be in cities that are associated with higher college graduation rates.
Or maybe we are dumber.
[CNN Money]
