Apple Stimulates Same Part of Brain As Religion, According to Brain MRI

Are you a true Apple ‘fanboy’? For the longest time, Apple has been viewed by many as a ‘cult’ or ‘religion’, due to its devoted loyal customers. The BBC in its recent filming of Secret of the Superbrands, focused on the cult of Apple as part of its segment.

So when neuroscientists scanned the brain of @alexbrooks (editor at World of Apple) with an MRI, the results showed Apple was stimulating the same areas of the brain that religious figures do for people of faith. Boom.

So it’s true. The Apple ‘experience’ is truly like a religion.

From the BBC article about Superbrands:

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.

Apple staff encouraged the hysteria at the new store opening in Covent Garden
When the doors finally opened, they hysterically “high-fived” and cheered hundreds of delirious customers flooding in through the doors for hours on end.

And what did those customers – some who’d travelled from as far away as the US and China and slept on the pavement for the privilege – find when they finally got inside?

Well, all the same stuff as in the Apple store half a mile away on Regent Street. No special offers, no free gifts (a few t-shirts were handed out), no exclusive products. Now that’s devotion.

So, what do you think? Is Apple your ‘religion’?

[BBC via PCMag]