Thou Shalt Have No Other Jobs Before Me: Geek Fanaticism Lights Up Same Part of the Brain as Religio

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/thou_shalt_have_no_other_jobs_before_me_geek_fanat.php

Recently, a neuroscientist scanned the brains of an Apple devotee with an MRI machine. What he found was that each time the Apple logo was flashed onto the screen, this acolyte's brain lit up in exactly the same region that lights up when a religious person is shown an icon of their faith.

Alex Riley, in his documentary, "Secrets of the Superbrands," set out to figure out "how (the world's most powerful technology) brands - such as Apple, Microsoft and Google - have grown so explosively to become some of the world's biggest companies."

:snip:

"The scenes I witnessed at the opening of the new Apple store in London's Covent Garden were more like an evangelical prayer meeting than a chance to buy a phone or a laptop. The strangeness began a couple of hours before the doors opened to the public. Inside the store, glassy-eyed staff were whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, jumping up and down, clapping and shouting."

If this doesn't bother you, well, maybe it should.

More at the link --

[SharonAnn]

1. As an IT person, I used to say "It's a technology, not a religion."

And this was decades ago when people would say "I'm an IBM person", meaning they only worked with IBM computers. Or they might say "I'm a DEC person", or I'm an HP person, or ...

It used to frustrate me to no end, to hear supposedly logical thinkers claim allegiance to a brand, or even to an operating system.

And it still does.

I'm working with some people here in our community on e-Readers and getting the same kind of thing. I'm a Kindle person, I'm a Nook person, I'm an Ipad person.

Still frustrates me to no end.

[damntexdem]

2. Wouldn't get that result in Texas -- here it's football.

Or right now in North Texas, it's NBA basketball.

;-)