Netbooks are a kind of personal computers characterized by a small size, low weight, low power consumption, and low cost. They are diskless, use inexpensive components and rely in free software and Software-as-a-Service applications. Although they can perform the general computing processes of a desktop and a laptop, their CPU power is low and cannot run multiple applications, their local storage is minimal, their keyboards are cramped, and screens have low resolutions. In the last two years netbooks have become more and more popular in the United States of America. Its raising popularity can be explained using either Rogers’ diffusion theory or Carey’s cultural-economical approach.
Rogers (1995) understands the diffusion of innovations within a social system as a communication process that can be enacted in order to produce social change. For him, diffusion “is the process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. It is a special type of communication, in that the messages are concerned with new ideas.(12) Netbooks, as innovations in the Rogers’ sense, are technological objects perceived as “new” by an individual. It is the perceived or subjected “newness” what determines the reaction towards the netbooks. As a matter of fact, although networks were introduced since the middle of the 1990s, Americans did not perceive them as new until very recently. As Rogers states, “the ‘newness’ aspect of an innovation may be expressed in knowledge, in attitude, or regarding a decision to it.” (19)
It is possible to characterize the Americans’ perception of notebooks during the last two years with the five intrinsic characteristics of innovations: relative advantage, compativility, complexity, triability, and observability). Notebooks are have started to be perceived as being better the existing desktop and laptop computers because their portability and low cost (high relative advantage). Notebooks have started to be perceived as being consistent with the current social mission of Americans’ technological progress, the Americans’ past experiences of home and portable computer use, the current wireless and networked environment, and current needs of being connected to the Internet everywhere (high compatibility). Netbooks have started to be perceived as being simple and straightforward for Americans to use (low complexity). Americans have started to have the chance to “try out” netbooks in a safe and comfortable environment such as friends’ home, offices, and computer retailers (triability). Americans have started to observe other Americans, of similar status, with the netbooks (observability).
Following Rogers, the diffusion of the netbooks in the U.S during the last two yeas has to be also understood by the characteristics of the social system (structure and norms). On the one hand, the U.S social system has a structure that facilitates the diffusion of innovations by influencing the behavior the Americans. Example of that are the sophisticated, dense, and advanced communication networks that connect the whole nation. On the other hand, the U.S system’s norms are the epitome of Rogers’ modernism. The system is typified by “a generally positive attitude toward change, a well developed technology with a complex division of labor, a high value on education and science, rational and businesslike social relationships rather than emotional and affective, cosmopolite perspectives, and empathic ability on the part of the systems’ members.” (32-33) Complementing such ideal system for diffusion of netbooks are the group of American computer technology innovators (e.g. Nicolas Negroponte and the OLPC project) and the American influential opinion leaders. After the innovators created the netbooks and tested them, the opinion leaders observed their advantage and decided to embrace the new technology.
In contrast to the blatant subjectivism and the celebration of consumerism that characterizes Rogers’ diffusion theory, it is possible to understand the recent popularity of netbooks in the U.S with a cultural-economical approach (under Carey’s influence) that does not ignore the relationship between netbooks and the late-capitalism, between technology and ideology.
Since information generation, processing, and transmission has become the source of productivity in late-capitalist and post-industrial societies, the development of computer technologies has become a central aspect for American economic grow. Spreading netbooks, in this sense, is a strategy for improving knowledge generation and information processing. The more Americans buy netbooks and start using them, the better for the American economy.
Netbooks encourage their users to be connected to the Internet, an information system that integrates computers and telecommunication technologies in a dense network. Because netbooks have low storage capacity and low CPU power, their users have to storage their data and run applications (Software-as-a-Service applications) in distant servers or data centers. Leading information corporations such as Google and Microsoft who have been developing the infrastructure (pushing forward to the cloud computing world) for providing information services such as hosted storage and software applications benefit from the diffusion of netbooks. However, they are not the only ones who benefit. Actually, the whole information system that is networked in the Internet and the World Wide Web benefits. Spreading netbooks are just one of the latest steps of the information technological process in order to encourage more inputs into the system, more knowledge for processing and for the generation of more knowledge (feedback effect).
After having connected the whole country with a sophisticated transportation and telecommunication network, colonizing the complete physical space, the American capitalist project has not stopped its race in colonizing the temporal frontier. The diffusion of netbooks in the U.S, as part of this project, contributes to the social and economic control of the “sacred time” of the Americans. Although the psychological effects of being connected all the time to the Internet and interacting, sometimes very automatically, in the World Wide Web, have not been studied yet, the Americans practical consciousness is definitely being reworked by the diffusion of netbooks and other telecommunication/computer technologies.
References
Carey, J. (1989). Technology and ideology: The case of the telegraph. In Communication as culture: Essays on media and society. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 201-230.
Rogers, Everett. Diffusion of Innovations. (1995, 4th Ed.). New York: Free Press, pp. 1-174.
