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He's just not that into you (or your Android phone)

Commentary: A survey from internet dating site Match.com suggests single iPhone users are a touch snobby about the gadgets owned by potential dates.

Chris Matyszczyk
3 min read

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.


iPhones
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iPhones

If you have to put it on the table, keep it face-down. (Ohhh, the rose gold is nice; do you come here often?)

CNET

For years now, people have appeared to take sides.

iPhone vs. Android was like the Dodgers vs. the Giants, the Red Sox vs. the Yankees or the Patriots vs. the NFL.

Was it, though, so serious that it would prevent natural human love from occurring between owners of the different phone systems?

Online dating site Match.com decided to investigate. It asked more than 5,500 singletons aged 18 and over about many of their emotions, including those surrounding technology.

And what painful conclusions were reached.

The Match survey found that iPhone owners are more discriminating in the technology a prospective mate uses, preferring people who share their taste. Sadly, they're rather more likely to look down their noses at Android fans. Android users, on the other hand, appeared to be more technologically promiscuous and more open to iPhone owners as potential partners.

The survey results don't mention users of Windows Phone devices, leaving one to infer that such people are undatable.

Is this study evidence of the snobbery of which iPhone users have often been accused? Is this proof that they're holier-than-thou? Or, at least, holier-than-Android-thou?

I fear it may be. Some, of course, will insist that there's more to it than mere gadget prejudice. iPhone users tend to earn more than Androiders. Could that also be a factor?

This is love, people. Let it go.

What a depressing thought that the iPhone you own is now viewed in the same way as the BMW you drive or the Prada you wear. It's one thing to buy and use a product. But if people really are -- and remember, this is just a piece of research -- so ready to be negative about another human being just because of a phone, the world is in a parlous state.

Which, indeed, it is.

This wasn't the only glorious phone-related nugget unearthed by Match's investigation. For example, the survey found that 86 percent of women will judge a man negatively if his phone screen is cracked.

I used to think of a cracked screen as art. This might explain those barren years of my dating life before I got a new phone (and an Android-embracing girlfriend prepared to embrace an iPhone user).

But there's more loving judgment where technology is concerned. Millennials seem to be 270 percent more likely to think you're gorgeous if you binge-watch the same shows they do. No self-regard there, then.

I trawled through the numbers to find a tinge of hope, and discovered the following: 58 percent of single daters don't want to see your phone face-up on a date, and 45 percent insist that it's a turn-on if you turn your phone off.

My absolute favorite figure, though, has it that 26 percent of these single people declared that not being on social media makes you more attractive.

Humanity's comeback started with the brave 26 percent.

Technically Incorrect: Bringing you a fresh and irreverent take on tech.

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