Data from 9,785 users of the dating site OKCupid reveal that iPhone users have 50% to 100% more sex partners than Android users, at every age.
This graph combines men and women, but the same pattern holds for each gender separately.
Explain this to me!
More info here (if you scroll down a couple of screens).
iPhones are for peacocking and signalling as much as for talking, surfing, etc.
As they say:
Q: How can you tell if someone has an iPhone?
A: No need. They tell you.
Good to know iPhone users are getting *some* kind of service…
It’s because there’s an app for that.
1. It is self reported. iPhone users like to brag, braggers exaggerate.
2. iPhone users need more attention from more sources than others to not feel worthless.
This is extremely speculative, and coming from someone with a terrible phone..
– iPhone and other Apple product-users, I’d associate with people who are more aesthetically-driven in design of the products and in music. Aesthetically-driven people, I’d expect, ceteras paribus, would have more and shorter relationships, for obvious reasons (and incompatibility). They are more attractive to partners on average, and more likely to pursue partners.
– Blackberry-users, I believe, are stereotypically business-oriented people. The Blackberry is from my experience, easily functional and fairly reliable. Business people are moderately attractive to partners, but due to time constraints: pursue partners less time than iPhone users.
– Android-users. This is the one I most closely identify with. The marketing of the Android phones seems to focus on the demographic of techy people who are interested in customizing and modifying their phone. These are likely people who tinker with other things as well. They spend less time socializing and have lower social skills due to the time trade-off of tinkering. They also might be controlling or demanding as evidenced by their preference for personalized products, but due to their inexperience manipulating people, they are likely introverted and not satisfied by social interaction and therefore invest less time in anticipation of it: I.e. They may groom less, bath less & get out less. (This is all relative to other phone users, which are more social than people without phones) SO the Android user is likely less attractive to partners and less satisfied by incompatible partners which may be interested..
the graph shows the CUMMULATIVE NUMBER of partners (otherwise the graph does not make sense – 40 year olds have 18+ simultaneous relationships vs 18 year olds having just 6 – no)… if so the causation runs other way around – certain way of life leads to purchase of sexy phone… iphone itself is 3-4 years and its influence must be gigantic to affect life long number of partners of 40 year adults
I suspect the effect is more along the lines of Android and Blackberry users getting laid less than average, than iPhone users being really succesfull.
It shows the difference between people who are willing to shell out for status displays and those who do not. Those who do not pay might well do so because they realize their value as partner is low enough that the iPhone won’t help much anyway.
I noted also that the average woman iphone user has 20% more partners than the man (12 v 10) while that number is much lower for android and bberry users.
I posit that the blackberry is more of a professional’s tool and that users are more likely to already be in a monogamous relationship.
Another theory is that iPhones, being restricted to the AT&T Network which is notorious for having poor reception in rural areas, are found mostly in urban centers which have populations that are more promiscuous.
Both of these suggest correlation rather than causation …
The results are self-reports from a dating website. I’m not convinced their honest.
Regardless, correlation is not causation.
*they’re
I’m retarded.
I actually posted this article to Facebook yesterday. One of my friends provided this assessment:
“I have to wonder [if] these statistics are skewed, though. Given I am in the extreme minority among gay men who have a not-iPhone, and given so many of them are he-whores, I think they’re artificially driving up the numbers!”
I haven’t actually looked at the OKC post so I’m not sure if they include all orientations. Either way, my friend’s explanation does not explain one of the other graphs showing that while iPhones correlate with more partners for everyone, they correlate with EVEN MORE partners for females…
From what I have seen, businesses pay for a lot of Blackberry users, but you pay for your own iPhone. Skewing the results towards responsible for BB users. I know nothing about Android though.
Dropped calls leave iPhone users with a lot of extra free time.
Lots of Android users are Linux geeks. Guys who care about open systems generally don’t have great game. As you hint at in the title, it doesn’t do any good for geeks to buy Iphones. It won’t help them get lucky and they won’t like the phone as much.
It’s so annoying to see the news reporting this as “iPhone users have more sex!” when the actual data (valid or not) only say “iPhone users have more cumulative sexual partners”. As an example, let’s say a 28-year-old iPhone user has had 10 one night stands, whereas a 28-year-old Android user has had 6 one-year relationships. Who do you think had more sex?
Overall I agree with the commonsense explanations posted above and elsewhere: iPhones are trendy, easy-to-use gadgets that attract all kinds of users, whereas Androids are a bit harder to use, a bit more geeky, and attract the corresponding type of personality. People who are willing to spend time figuring out how to use their open-source phone are people who are not spending that time searching for new sexual partners.
It’s been said earlier, but my theory of the correlation (unpopular with iPhone users, I’m sure) is that many people who seek attention and affirmation can get it through 1) numerous partners and 2) having the “cool” phone. The correlation is strong enough that you can see it in the chart, even though not everyone with an iPhone is promiscuous.
iPhone users I would guess are on average wealthier than non-iPhone users. IPhone plans are Somewhat pricey.
I might add iPhone users seem to me to be more liberal in attitude and realtively young. So, you’ve got relative wealth, youth, and liberal attitude. Just what you need to start having Les of sex partners. :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/PiratesVsTemp_English.jpg
I can’t work out if increases in global temperature reduces the number of pirates or if the reduction in the number of pirates increases global temperature.
However, the correlation is undeniable
Did OKCupid give any data which shows when the people got their phone and how many sex partners they’ve had before and after? Then we might have an idea about causation.
They also have that other variable mixed in there, and that’s that all the data comes from those who signed up with an online dating site. Any good theory is going to have to explain why these sexually successful iPhone users are signing up in the first place.
What I don’t understand is why this graph isn’t titled “iPhone Users Are Sluts” or “iPhone Users are Braggarts”. Because as far as I can tell, those headlines are equally relevant to the graph data.
Where’s the control group of people who don’t have smartphones (or even cell phones?) All I can speculate is that the iPhone is the more mainstream product, and therefore probably has the most representative sample of users.
Andrew gave a hypothesis that was very similar to my thoughts, so instead Ill go for snark.
Im going to say that porn must be better on an Android phone.
I would like some additional data before reaching a conclusion. For example, what is the distribution of partners? I might guess that the median number of users might be closer together than the average, if iPhone users have more of a spread of partners than the other users. Also, how many users fall into each group by age? Are iPhone users on average older than Android users?
Apple iphones, and iphone apps, are marketed to impulsive and image-driven people. Those people are likely to have more sex partners.
It’s been more than a month since your religion debate…when are you going to blog about it lol.
Dave, interesting, but given the reemergence of pirates in Somalia, shouldn’t it be argued that there is a biphasic correlation between the number of pirates and global temperatures?
Jon – how else would you explain the relatively mild New York summer this year?
The slopes of the series are roughly the same, so whatever the phenomenon, it’s happening before 18 years of age.
They start with a spread of almost four partners, then over a 22-year period an iPhone user adds 11 sex partners and an Android user adds nine.
… so if you extrapolate backwards, an iPhone user becomes sexually active at 11 or 12 and an Android user at 16 or 17. Then they pile up their partners at roughly the same rate for the next 22 years.
Part of this is certainly explained by iPhone users counting themselves.