To Hold or to cash out, that is the question.

As an undergrad student you are given $100 worth of bitcoin, would you Hold on or cash out ? . Would you be considered as an early adopter or late adopter of technology. As a student, in which situation would you hold on the bitcoins and in which would you cash out? . Those are the basic questions some academics wanted to respond, and studied in the framework of about Bitcoin adoption from 4,494 students at the MIT in one of the largest social science experiments the campus. Here is an interesting post about that.

This post is about a study made with Bitcoin adoption, i propose, lets make one with steem adoption. Please read the post and leave comments and ideas below.

Introduction

In October 2014, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were preparing for one of the largest social science experiments the campus had ever seen: In the following weeks, every undergraduate student would be given $100 worth of
Bitcoin. What can we learn from a study made to MIT students?

The experiment

The MIT Bitcoin Club gave each of 4,494 MIT undergraduates $100 in bitcoin. Students then signed up to a wait list to receive their bitcoin, during which process they answered a variety of survey questions about themselves and their use of technology and also signed up for a digital wallet that would allow them to receive their bitcoin.

All students had to decide whether to hold onto this new type of digital currency or to simply cash out and convert it to US dollars.

A unique feature of this research design was that it attempted to accelerate the early stages of technology diffusion by randomizing the order in which students received their Bitcoin: Some early adopters had to wait for two additional weeks, whereas some natural late adopters were placed in the unfamiliar situation of being among the First to hold the digital currency.

The Observations

Seeding a technology while ignoring early adopters’ needs for distinctiveness is counterproductive. There were identified early adopters by their eagerness in signing up for the waitlist for Bitcoin, also with the information gathered from the general data in the list for signing up.

Interesting enough, alternative explanations for to adopt or not the technology were considered, like price expectations and financial neediness. These were out of the scope of the study so they weren’t considered important reasons for adopting or not the technology by the student.

Early adopters rejecting Bitcoin.

Happened in situations where the delayed natural early adopter is more likely to observe others who are not natural early adopters adopt the technology first, such as in a close-knit dorm environment. And is logical, the students characterized as early adopters with the 2-week delay of bitcoin provision, share dorm rooms with the late adopters who were given bitcoins early.

It was observed that it is more likely to occur when the natural early adopter is somewhat socially unique rather than common.

We then turn to see whether this rejection of the technology by natural early adopters had spillovers for their peers. We find that dorms and social clusters where an above-the-median share of early adopters were delayed, were characterized by more students subsequently rejecting the currency.

In contrast, if a natural early adopter lived outside of campus there was little effect.

Conclusions

While the existing literature has stressed the positive, network-effect building role of individuals who seek early adopter status, this study's results highlight a situation where those who naturally adopt technologies early become an obstacle to diffusion.

If early adopters derive consumption utility from being first among their peer group in embracing new technology trends and potentially tying their identity to being first to adopt technologies, excluding them from early access has a strong effect on the likelihood that they will reject the technology.

It was found that if natural adopters are randomly delayed, they are more likely to reject the technology rather than attempting to use it

This is consistent with intentional exit by delayed early adopters having negative spillovers on the ultimate usage of the technology by others close to them.

So basically, early adopters do provide a positive network effect when they are included and feel involved in adopting a new technology, the negative effect though could be spread out if there are small groups where early adopters and late adopters socialize together and early adopters felt behind. As expected, tech savvy early adopters are very influential to smaller groups but not too much in the wider proportion or to other persons from other social circles.

More interesting, what about a study about students interacting in a platform like Steemit !, wouldnt that be a great thing to study ?

You can read the complete paper Seeding the S-Curve?. The Role of Early Adopters in Diffusion 2016 (Catalini, Tucker)

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