Technology and Personality Traits – Will You Embrace Technology Now or Later?

Technology is here to stay.  The graph below shows segments of the population who will quickly embrace technology and new innovation and those who may take a little longer.  In this blog we will share the personality traits of each group. You will learn who you are and have a better understanding of your personality traits that drive your decision making process as it relates to technology adoption.

Technology Adoption

According to the Rogers research, not everyone will immediately adopt to new innovation despite the benefits.  Rogers' identified some interesting personality traits that help categorize when people accept a new innovation. Opinion Leadership is mentioned throughout, please find a definition of opinion leader below.

Who is an opinion leader?

Social media has helped define who an opinion leader is.  Opinion leaders are just normal people (not wealthy, and usually not elected officials) who have the skill to stay on top of "what's new" and have wide social networks to share that information.

How Five Consumer Groups Adapt to Technology

Innovators (2.5%)

Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation.  Innovators are willing to take risks, youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial lucidity, very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies which may ultimately fail.  Financial resources help absorb these failures.

Early Adopters (13.5%) 

This is the second fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education, and are more socially forward than late adopters.

Early Majority (34%)

Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters, and seldom hold positions in opinion leadership within a system.

Late Majority (34%)

Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late majority are typically skeptical about an innovation, have below average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.

Laggards (16%)

Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to focus on “traditions”, likely to have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity.  They are usually the oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends and have very little to no opinion leadership.

Where Do You Fit?

The article went on the say, just because you fall into one category in one area of your life, it doesn’t mean you will remain in this category in all areas as it relates to technology. 

For example, a person may adopt green technologies for their home with solar heating and yet not belong to an online social network or own a smartphone. As a population, we bounce back and forth across the curve in a large part based on the pain points we are trying to solve and our interest in the benefits to making a change. 

Affiliate Marketing and Early Majorities

We believe people who are currently looking to the internet for business opportunities are at the Early Majority stage of the curve. The founders and the leaders of the Six Figure Community are the innovators and early adopters. This is one of the reasons we were attracted to Six Figure Mentors.  We benefit from the depth of experience of leaders who know the digital world. We learn from the wisdom of humble leaders who have excelled and want to inspire others to do the same.  We have mentors and coaches to show us the way, we learn from their experiences so we don't repeat the same mistakes

Six Figure Mentors was created to educate people like us become affiliate marketers. We are given access to knowledge to acquire the skills we need to thrive in the digital era.  We learn from leaders in the community and we learn from one another.  

Check out the 7 free videos to learn more about the digital era and how affiliate marketing can be a solution for you.

We look forward to joining you on your online journey.