IT Snobbery

I just read an article in the July Readers Digest (my wifes Grandfather signs us up every year as a Xmas gift).  It states that “Mac users are arrogant snobs” according to a US study.

Mindset Media, a US branding company that analyses the relationship between consumer behaviour and personality, surveyed 7500 Mac and PC owners.  Its finding? Mac users are “snobs”.  In comparison to PC owners, they’re likely to visit Starbucks for coffee more often, buy organic products and drive a hybrid car.  Mindset Media says that people who purchase Macs fall into what it calls the “Openness 5″ personality category – which means they are more liberal, less modest and more assured of their own superiority than the population at large.

Readers Digest, July 2008

After many years of tinkering with PC’s and windoze I am now on my second Apple iMac (purchased myself) and MacBook laptop (education issue) and feeling quite self assured.  I can’t afford Starbucks, organic food or a hybrid car but when using my Mac I feel I have transcended to the promised land of simplicity and productivity.

Quiting windows was, for me, like quiting smoking – it has saved me a whole lot of time and money and I feel better for it.  I feel kind of sorry for people who unknowingly put up with crapware and spyware in much the same way that I feel sorry for people who can’t quit the smokes.

So I guess the survey is right, I am a snob, and no one is more critical of smokers than an ex smoker.