Okay Geek Farm
Apple products trigger "religious" reaction in user's brains
Brandon Davenport
The photo above shows a computer store, on a regular day opening their doors at 9AM as always. The thing that makes that day different is that they have an extra product on their shelf, and today is the day they decide to let people buy it. The company we’re talking about is Apple, and having hundreds of people crowded around each of their 300 of stores for the release of their new product is a pretty regular thing — but doesn’t this seem a bit strange, for a computer company?
Apple has managed to devise a system in which they work on a product in secret for years (even a decade in the case of the iPad) and suddenly announce it at a pre-determined keynote. Once the product is shown, and the word is out, the news starts to burst at the seams and the entire consumer world flips on it’s head. It’s a very busy day for people like us (a technology blog) and it’s only a matter of time before the ads start to run, which are usually watched millions of times on Youtube alone — and during this entire time, Apple’s millions of loyal fans stand by waiting with wallets open.
A crowd going crazy over an advertisement?
Here’s what really worries us — for Apple fans, the sight of anything to do with Apple triggers a reaction in the brain that’s much like what a religious devotee experiences. This is According to a BBC documentary series that looks at today’s consumer industry and why people go crazy over material things.
“The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company’s gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people — Mark Milian, CNN”
Apple is still a great company
When you think about it, Apple has swept the entire consumer world with their un-canny ability to turn them into sales-people. Apple fans spew nothing but good things about their favorite company, and are willing to pay through the nose for the latest. Mind you, Apple does make terrific products, and is a regular innovator in creating useful hardware and software out of existing ideas that didn’t break through. Apple has also brought brand-new experiences to the world, like a unified mobile operating system, an online store (and integrated payment system) for software and accurate, useful multitouch on screens and other surfaces. They are a great company, maybe with a few bad apple’s (pardon the pun) but we just hope they don’t further warp the fact that the tech industry doesn’t revolve around them.
