Confirmed: Windows Users are Stupid

I’m not one of your standard animal welfare types — a wash frequently for a start — but sometimes when I read about poor dumb animals being subjected to cruel and unusual experiments it makes my blood boil. Its just not right, whether it’s putting lipstick on a rabbit, making a dog smoke a pipe, or as in this case, sitting students down in front of Windows.

Researchers at the Psychology Department of North Carolina State University, in an attempt to pretend that they’re really scientists, sat student volunteers down in front of a PC and told them to watch some websites. However, after a few moments pop-ups like the one above warning about malware would appear. (Which is nothing unusual. In my experience of Windows this happens whether you’re taking part in an experiment or not.)

Researchers wanted to see whether their guinea pigs would take the time to read the pop-up, or whether they would just randomly click the “OK” button. And I think we all know what the answer was. They should have used real guinea pigs.

• via Valleywag
• also ArsTechnica