Accept Or Rejecting Innovations By Jared Diamond

Innovators are constantly creating new innovations to present a new ideas, methods, or products to the public. But what actually causes people to accept or reject these innovations? In Jared Diamond’s essay, “Accepting or Rejecting Innovations”, he discusses what drives people to either accept or reject an innovation. There are three factors that Diamond mentions which are the economic advantage, social status, and vested interests. Diamond gives an example for each factor such as the economic disadvantage of wheeled vehicles in Native American cultures, because of their lack of domestic animals to transport the vehicles; the social values of costly designer jeans because of the prestige of designer jeans; and the use of QWERTY keyboard to

Hoverboard. one of many rejected innovations, is a self-balancing, two-wheeled scooters which are made for personal transportation. Hoverboard was rejected because of its high cost and the disadvantages that it brought to the consumers. Economically, people who are rich enough are able to buy these since the cost of a hoverboard ranges from $300 to $700 Not only these hoverboards are expensive , there are multiple incidents of hoverboards exploding and catching on fire. As a consequence, there are some regions that prohibit the use of hoverboards in public which brought rejection from officials and police. People already have their own personal transportation devices such as skateboards, bikes, scooters, and cars while some use public transportation to get to their destination and many may feel that it is unnecessary to buy an expensive hoverboard when their transportation is functional and convenient. Why invest in an expensive hoverboard that may malfunction and can only be used in certain areas? The public will reject an innovation when the innovation does not give them economic advantage. People want to save money and they are willing to invest if the innovation is reliable, convenient, and

An innovation can be accepted to a certain generation while the other generation may reject it. The older generations are more likely to reject many recent technology devices such as smartphones and laptops since they did not grow up with technology. My grandma grew accustomed to her flip phone and she believes that phones should only be used for calls. My dad bought her a smartphone. Unfortunately, she has no interest to learn how to use it and constantly have troubles to make a single call. She grew up without having any complex technical device and she feet that she was not required to adapt to it. This caused a rejection to smartphones. The younger generation is labeled as the generation who grew up with technology and they are more likely accept the newest technology. On the contrary, innovations such as better hearing aid and wheelchairs would attract the older generation. These innovations go back to the older generation’s wants due to their aging bodies. Most of the younger generation whose bodies are in good shape would reject it merely because they do not need it. The different wants and needs of these different groups affect their decisions greatly. The acceptance or rejection of an innovation depends on the different demands of different age