Download A Personal Account of the Adoption Process of Cell Phones: A Case Study and more Papers Communication in PDF only on Docsity! Amanda Alverson A3-Adoption Process Com 218, Section 1 Although I got my first cell phone five years ago, I think cell phones are the best example of a communication innovation that I have recently adopted. I have been back and forth with cell phones and have even gone for a couple of years without one. I will attempt to apply the adoption process to my on-again, off-again relationship with cell phones. The first step in the adoption process is hearing about the innovation and getting knowledge about it. I remember when I was around fourteen; I first started seeing people with cell phones that didn’t have to stay in the car. My mom still had a bag phone with an antenna that we had to attach to the top of our car to get reception, so I couldn’t imagine carrying around a phone that didn’t need an antenna or constant source of power. However, I was very curious about them, so I paid attention to advertisements and asked people who had them how well they worked. My sister was an early adopter and still has her first cell phone saved in a box somewhere. It was enormous and about the size of the one Zach Morris had on Saved by the Bell. She was living in Atlanta at the time and said it made her feel safer when she was riding the MARTA to Georgia State. This brings me to the second stage in the adoption process—evaluation. I was convinced that when I started driving, I needed a phone so that I would be safer. I thought it was cool to have one and it would allow me to talk to my friends no matter where I was. So when I was sixteen, I went on to the third and fourth steps of deciding to buy a cell phone and use it. I loved the sense of freedom it gave me, and took it everywhere. I wasn’t allowed to take it to school, but I left it in my car and turned it on the minute I got out of school every day. I was really excited to put all of my friends’ numbers in the phone book and really wanted a cute face plate like some of my friends had. However, I hated the monthly bills. My plan included 200 anytime minutes and 600 night and weekend minutes. At the time, that was more minutes than most of my friends had, and yet I went over my allotted minutes every month! My bill was supposed to be forty dollars a month, but was usually around sixty or seventy. It seemed like my battery always had to be charging—otherwise my phone would die very quickly. It didn’t work in certain areas and often had a very weak signal so I couldn’t understand the person I was talking to. My phone started seeming like more of a burden than anything else, and when my plan ended a year later, I decided to go without a cell phone. So in the last stage of the adoption process, I chose to discontinue use of the innovation. Considering the model, I would say that it pretty accurately describes the initial process I went through with cell phones. However, I want to mention that it is possible to go through the adoption process several times before finally making a decision on an innovation. A couple of years later when I moved to Athens, GA to go to college, I got another cell phone so that I would not have to pay for a land line. Again, I decided not to continue using the innovation because the costs outweighed the benefits. I went without a cell phone for another year and a half and was happy to live without one. This past Christmas, my fiancé bought my current cell phone as a gift for me because he often worried about me driving around without one. I really like my current plan and the
