The Pager- Through the Diffusion of Innovations (or Ideas)

Rogers' theory stands to be true once again...

The Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation or Ideas theory hold true again with the acceptance of the pager. Al Gross was the first pioneer of the pager. He went to a hospital convention in Pennsylvania to try and promote the wireless device. It was originally rejected by the medical community as it would "ruin afternoons at the gold course." Only a year later the early adopters bought into the idea of the pager. These people were the doctors at New York's Jewish Hospital and doctors using the system helped to establish the devices credibility and use in society.  Hospitals were the original users of pagers because it was a fast and easy way to notify people of emergency and they didn't rely on a cord attached to the wall. 

In 1958, the early majority was found once Federal Communications Commission approved the technology. At this time the product began to be mass produced and it was picked up my a major company called Motorola. By this point many other companies outside of the medical field were also using the pager, as it proved itself useful. Once the two way pager was created, everyday people were using them to send messages like "I love you." If people were using them in the workplace, why would people want to use them at home and in their personal life? They were wireless and effective. This wave of people were the late adopters as they didn't catch on to the trend until 20 years after the pager was created. The laggards of the use of the pager were still people who in the end decided to get one, but there are many people we never felt there was any use for them. This makes sense as most of them were just notification devices and if you are always by a landline there was no need for a pager because a call would be more effective.