Diffusions of Innovations Post

 

Who were the pioneers? 

The pioneers of my invention, the emoticon or the emoji, was Scott Fahlman and the Japanese artist Shigetaka Kurita. Scott Fahlman was the one who invented the emoticon through a "Bboard" post when he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. This caught on because of the fact that people around the world needed more than words to get their point across. 

Who were the early adopters?

The early adopters were people my age because they were anxious to get their hands on this type of technology. So people became early adopters because of the fact that they wanted messaging to be more fun, but also making posts more visually interesting while simultaneously being able to bring a smile to your friends face as you send a smiley face emoji. 

Who were the early majority?

The early majority was, at this point in time, when Apple first came out with the iPhone and emojis were all the rage. The emoticon was obviously still a viable option at this point in time, however more people were drawn to the already premade faces that you could use on a whim. There definitely weren't as many as there are now at this moment, but they were great messaging tools when it came down to it. Instead of saying "okay" you could just send a thumbs up emoji and the conversation would still have the same feel, if not better. 

Who were the laggards?

The laggards or the adopters were people who probably, still to this day, do not have an iPhone. The emotion is probably not at all used within this certain target market to begin with. I know that my grandparents personally never even knew how to access the emojis when they would send me a text. 

What are the downsides or the negative aspects of this?

The only downside is that the more negative emojis can create a much more intense discussion than of previous interest. The more broad and versatile ones may bring upon miscommunication and will therefore make them more inefficient when it comes to discussing things digitally. This was all found in an article written by CNN .