The User as a Resister of New Technologies (or Hail the Couch Potato)

Legal scholars have recently discovered the user of new technologies. But, we tend to concentrate on a specific type of user – the user as an innovator. We look at the user who designs, who changes a technology to reflect his needs. For example, much has been written about users innovating with open source software. We also pay ample attention to new users’ abilities to create using digital technology and the abundant content available on the Internet.

I do not wish to belittle this recent focus on the user as an innovator. But, I believe our concern with users should be significantly broader. After all, the user as an innovator is not our typical user. I want to suggest in this post that we begin paying attention to the ordinary user – the couch potato.

You may be wondering – why dedicate our time to the couch potato – isn’t our goal to encourage users to actively participate and innovate to promote progress? I propose that we focus on the ordinary user because despite the common belief that a technology failed because it was inherently destined for failure, it is this user who routinely makes decisions about whether to adopt or not to adopt new technologies. Users resist new technologies in different ways. Sometimes they actively resist them. Demonstrations against nuclear weapons are an example of active resistance. But most commonly, users engage in avoidance resistance. Examples of avoidance resistance are plentiful. From a woman not buying genetically modified food in the supermarket to an aging poet refusing to replace his typewriter with a computer.

I suggest that we start focusing on the user as an adopter of new technologies. The importance of concentrating on users daily adoption decisions lies in our emphasis on progress as an important socio-legal value. We care about the user as an innovator because we believe that innovation promotes progress and human welfare. But, if a brilliant new technology is not adopted, the progress goal itself is frustrated, and our investment in innovation is wasted.

In my next post, I will use the stories of two technologies: Videotext systems and the email to illustrate the importance of paying attention to user resistance.