September 23, 2005
The Upgraded Digital Divide
The Upgraded Digital Divide: Are we developing new technologies faster than consumers can use them? An insightful piece from Wharton.
"Wharton marketing professor Robert J. Meyer has been studying the ramifications of product enhancement and replacement since the 1980s. In a new paper, Meyer -- along with Shenghui Zhao of Wharton and Jin Han of Singapore Management University -- discuss what they call the "paradox of enhancement" in decisions by consumers to adopt new products. The paradox is this: When people are considering buying next-generation products, they find the bells and whistles attractive and decide to make the purchase, but when they acquire the products, they find the complexity of the new features overwhelming and end up using only the products' basic features... "They fail to foresee all the things that will cause them not to use them, such as the difficulty of learning.
... People know that they have not made use of next-generation product features in the past, but convince themselves that they still might do so this time around. Meyer uses the phrase "the possibility of infinite deferral" to describe this mindset."
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