Study Finds Smartphones Reveal Political Affiliation

(MYFOX NATIONAL) -- There seems to be a cell phone application for everything nowadays. When it comes to choosing political candidates, however, a smartphone application may not be needed.

According KCBS in San Francisco, a new study found that political party preference may be correlated directly to the type of smartphone you use.

A statewide survey of 600 likely voters by CALinnovates.org used a wide variety of questions to determine if social outlets like Facebook and Twitter had an effect on voters and politics in the state of California. What they found was somewhat surprising.

Of the voters surveyed, 16 percent said they owned an iPhone. Of that percentage, the majority favored Democrat Jerry Brown (57 percent) over Republican Meg Whitman (41 percent) in the race for governor.

21 percent of voters said they owned a Blackberry. Here, the results were flipped – 47 percent preferred Whitman, while 38 percent preferred Brown. Meanwhile, Blackberry users were, on average, more Republican, while iPhone users were more Democratic.

So what do these statistics mean? For one, it’s useful to politicians looking to gain more voters.

”Strategists are always looking for what works, and what doesn’t, and by seeing who uses which devices it helps them prepare how to communicate to whom,” said Larry Gerston, Political Analyst for KCBS.

Among these “devices” are online social outlets like Facebook. 40 percent of voters in the survey said they used Facebook. Furthermore, voters aged 40 and under said they used Facebook far more (72 percent) than they watched cable television (59 percent).

"That's a radical finding," said Ben Tulchin, who conducted the survey, said to The San Jose Mercury News . "It means the presumed way of reaching people through television isn't working."