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Late Adopters Prefer the Tried and True
smooth wombat writes "There is a fairly significant portion of the population which does not go out and grab the newest OS, gadget, web browser or any other technology related product. Why? It's not because they're luddites but rather, they are comfortable with what they know. Take the case of John Uribe, a 56-year old real estate agent who still uses AOL dial-up and only recently switched to Firefox after being prodded for weeks by an AOL message telling him that on March 1st, AOL would no longer support Netscape. Why did it take him so long to stop using Netscape and make the switch? From the article: 'It worked for me, so I stuck with it. Until there is really some reason to totally abandon it, I won't.'"
Many people are just so stubborn, so set in their ways, that they are blind to innovation and practical change. It is this kind of purposeful ignorance that keeps people from learning, from growing intellectually. In my line of work, doing tech support, I run into this every single day. The older generations, 40+ have no concept of technology and most of them don't want to. There are people in this day and age who still do not own a computer. Not because they cannot afford it or do not have a use for it, but because they fear it or because they are too lazy to learn how to use it. This is often the case with new tech also. If it requires any sort of effort to learn, people try to pretend its not there and stick with what they have until it is no longer a viable option. This saddens me greatly.