Diffusion of Innovations [#8]

 Diffusion of Innovations

    Everett Rogers was a professor of communication studies, much like our own Dean Smith here at High Point University. Rogers came up with a theory, popularized in his book, called the diffusions of innovations. This theory seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas/technology spread. 

The graph is spilt up into five different sections, the innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The innovators are the ones who invent the technology in hopes of improving humanity in some way. The early adopters are the first ones on the bandwagon, they see potential in this technology to improve their lives and run with it. The early majority is really where the technology/idea takes off, many more people see the potential of this technology and use it. The late majority is basically everyone else, who felt they would be left behind had they not adapted to the technology. The final category is the laggards, people who will never adapt the technology/idea.

    These people adopt whatever new technology/idea comes out because they want to invest in something the agree with or they don't want to feel left out or they can no longer live without this technology, like seatbelts.

    Some technology/ideas are adopted while others are not because of a variety of different factors, the state of the world, the moral beliefs of someone, or personal preference. To give a recent example of this, would be the invention of the corona-virus vaccine. Many many people want to use this technology to better protect themselves against the virus that has killed 500,00 Americans alone, while others do not. 

    To continue with the corona-virus vaccine example, many people are early adopters, because they are frantic to get back to their lives, to hug their loved ones, no matter what the cost others are speculating about. Some people will be late adopters, due to all of the unknown surrounding long-term effects of the vaccine, but will eventually crack due to the increasing pressure they will have to get that vaccine. As much as I disagree with opting out of getting the covid vaccine, some people will. They will due to personal preferences and religious/moral beliefs that they have followed all of their life and are too stubborn to give up now. 

    Now to explore another technology, I have talked about on this blog before, homing pigeons with the diffusion of innovations theory. Homing pigeons caught on and spread when people realized the benefit to how fast these birds could spread messages. So many people were early adopters because this was the only technology available to them to do this task of communication. People were late adopters, because they did not need that fast communication until other places spoke to them and wanted faster messages back. Some people never adopted pigeons as a form of communication, because the technology got better in the form of tvs and radios, so they never needed to use them. Homing pigeons as a technology did not have many disadvantages other than the upkeep and care it took to keep them healthy and trained.