When it comes to choosing a smartphone to purchase, or even just a debate among friends and family regarding smartphone brands, only two names come out on top: iPhone and Android.
This has been a debate for years, especially when possessing a smartphone becomes necessary instead of just for entertainment or bragging rights.
Stereotypically, iPhone users—Apple’s products in general—are elevated among the high-class status because of its quality levels, security, and consistent design throughout every model released. Plus, when it was introduced in the market in 2007, Apple had set the price at a jaw-dropping USD 499.
In a way, someone who owns an iPhone is placed on a pedestal where the status symbol is raised, especially when that person initially held a non-Apple device. However, the iPhone’s effect reflects not just a person’s “upgraded” lifestyle or taste but also manifests in how we search for or view relationships with others.
Keep in mind that someone who possesses an iPhone has this “glorified” effect, and how we relate this impression to the person also affects other factors surrounding him or her. If we see someone with an iPhone, we are attracted or drawn to this person.
Similarly, when someone dates a partner with an iPhone (or, say, any Apple product), there is this bonus attraction to that person. These examples are all because of the cognitive phenomenon related to how we initially perceive iPhone users.
To further explain this psychology, a 2022 study published in Current Psychology observed that people relate socially desirable personality traits to physically attractive individuals. This is despite the fact that PLOS ONE revealed that Android and iPhone users showed very negligble differences in personalities.
By “attractive individuals,” the ratings based on the study pointed out the following: confident, emotionally stable, intelligent, sociable, responsible, and trustworthy.
In this case, it’s not seeing someone holding an iPhone that makes him or her attractive; rather, it’s how they exude the traits mentioned above that draw us to them. “He is holding an iPhone, so he must be confident and understand sophistication.” Especially when we own an iPhone, too.
Remember that phones are just things, and if phones are becoming a necessity—a need, not just a want—then what matters is that phones have the basic features needed for communication or allow you to install applications that can be used to communicate or update with family, friends, and the world.
If the goal is to form significant relationships with others, maybe it’s best not to observe their possession—like the kind of phone they use—to guess their social status or capabilities. Instead, the focus is to build a relationship and use phones to connect even when you are far from each other.