Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations

Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation skills is remarkably interesting to me, I have never seen anything like it before. At first it can look very confusing, but once you learn the terminology and understand the method it will completely make sense. It is a smart way to think of ideas and inventions and can be used on anything to help the human brain understand further in an easier way.

The Email was created in Newark, NJ in 1978. There can be a lot to talk about when you look at the invention of email through the lens of diffusion theory. The diffusion theory has many distinct levels to them. There are the Pioneers, early adopters, early/late majority, laggards, and long tails. So, while thinking about this for the invention of the email it can be looked at in many ways.  

The pioneer(s) would be Shiva Ayyadurai because he was the first person to invent the technology and had the first patent for the “Email”. The early adapters would be the first people to have tried it and who really enjoyed it, the ones who understood the point behind it. The early majority would be younger people and people who needed to communicate more easily. The late majority are older people who were not used to this form of communication and who prefer the method they have known while they were growing up for years. The laggards, these are the last people who will get on the train for whatever the invention it is. In this scenario the laggards would be much older people who never wanted to join but were forced through families' members or the technology being so strong that they needed it for some reason. The last category to this is the long tails, while rare these are the people who never end up starting to use email. These will be the people who are totally against it and feel that it is not needed in their lives. In the article I read it states that 15-16% of doctors still do not use email. This is crazy to me because emailing just seems so easy and a fast way to get news sent out, but these people just think differently. 

Email has because such a huge thing because it is cheap, fast, and easier way to communicate. People have become early adopters when the invention of email came out because it was an innovative idea that struck society, it was the “cool new thing”. Although there are some downsides like the carbon footprint it leaves behind, the miscommunication, and life/work balance I think the positives can outweigh the negatives. I think that these positives outweigh the negatives because this form of communication has changed the world over the past four decades. Emailing has because a consistent and necessary form of communication in places of work. In the article about email statistics, it states that there are 4.258 billion active email users today and there are about 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide. With this it is 89.45% of Americans over the age of 15 use email, this can really put into perspective how many people use email and how useful it is.   

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Google Presentation

I was not in class for the presentations unfortunately, but I did get to listen to two of the presentations. The one I want to talk about is the google presentation which happened to be someone who was in the same group as me. He had some very interesting facts about google.  

Google was launched in 1998 and was not supposed to be nearly as big as it is today. There was not supposed to be all the extra apps like google email, google sheets, and all the extra extensions they have. Initially I was so surprised to hear this because google has slowly taken over the world year after year and is now one of the biggest platforms I have ever known. I also had heard before that google was started in a garage, but I was not sure if it was true or something I had just heard.  

One thing I did not know nor have ever heard about that google had made phones, laptops, earbuds, and has a whole entire line of electronics a long with all the other applications they have connected through google. While I knew about the applications, I did not know how long they have been around for. Through the presentation I learned that these applications came out from 2004-2006. I was born in 2004, and it is crazy to think about how it was all around when I was just born. These technologies are so helpful and a great way to have everything all together through one account. I thought it was interesting to learn about google more than just the standard stuff people already know.  

I also have been learning about “google Gemini” in one of my classes and had wished it got talked about. This is a source of AI that google has created and is being used by many people every day. I just wonder how it compares to just using regular “google” to get an answer. Obviously when you use google sometimes the answer doesn’t always just pop and and you kind of have to search for it, but with google gemini (AI) you can just get a direct answer. I wonder if google Gemini will slowly start to become more popular than googles generic browser.

The Invention of Email

                                              

The invention of the email was created in Newark, NJ by Shiva Ayyaduarai. In 1978 he had the first copyright for the “EMAIL” when he was just 14.  

He could not get a job at this age, but he had a pure love for programming. In the article Who Invented Email it states how The National Science Foundation put out a call and wanted to make a youth program to educate younger people on computer programing. The NSF chose 40 high school students to be placed through 7 different programs and Shiva was one of those 40 chosen. He then met Les Michelson who wanted him to create the first mail system on an electronic format. He then needed a memorandum format electronically which was “to” and “from” lines then the subject line, body, and any carbon copies or attachments.

There were many problems while trying to create. They needed to create something simple and understandable. With this they produced the simplest form which was an inbox, outbox, and folders. These were exact replicas of how these guys communicated using physical mail. Even in today's world if you look at reports 15-16% of doctors still do not use email.  

The invention of email impacted our world in many ways. It made communication easier and faster. This has decreased the problem of having to communicate from far away and having to wait for letters to be sent in the mail. Of course, this is still a form of communication but not as commonly used as it once was. This completely changed communication for the better when it came out. Emailing is what keeps places of work going and is the main source of communication in that setting.  

 

While the invention of email has had numerous positive effects, it also introduced several negative impacts. One disruption is a work-life balance, Email has destroyed the balance between work and personal life. You can be easily and regularly reachable even outside of regular working hours, for example 9-5, most people end up being contacted outside of these hours and even on weekends. Decreased face-to-face communication and with miscommunication, with a decrease in face-to-face communication and the increase of communication over emailing there is horrible miscommunication, you cannot hear and understand the tone of the conversation which can lead to conflicts in conversations.  Last but certainly not least there is horrible environment issues involved. The mass energy consumption and carbon footprint emails and the use of computers, laptops, and phones are way too high. It's hurting our environment more then we could ever imagine. So while inevitability Email being positive there can still be negative impacts.