Question

When John began helping his favorite uncle Burton with his finances, he discovered his uncle was still renting a rotary-dial telephone from the phone company. Uncle Burton had paid thousands of dollars in rental fees over the previous 40 years. Uncle Burton is a(n) ________ in the diffusion of innovation process for telephones.

(A) early adopter
(B) innovator
(C) late majority
(D) laggard
(E) early majority

Answer 1

Answer: (D) laggard.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to the diffusion of innovations theory, adopters are categorized in innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, depending on the time it gets for innovations to spread among them.

Laggards are those who come last to embrace technological innovation. People in this category are usually against change-agents and rather focus on traditions. They tend to be from a low social and economic level, and the oldest among adopters.