Novelty and The Novelty Effect
Mar 16th, 2011 by pcollins
Novelty and the Novelty Effect
By definition, novelty is the “newness” of something and when referring to technology it is usually an upgrade (blackberry to blackberry torch) as opposed to a brand new invention. Although, those do exist –
The novelty effect is the initial glamour and enhancement that is offered by an entity. We see a certain increased performance oftentimes not because of the technology itself but because of our increased interest in the technology. As we all know, this wears off to a certain amount and our previous feelings for the ancestor to our new “novel” object return. (I am guiltly thinking of my own one-year old car and the self-promises that I made regarding it’s cleanliness and maintenance.) Studies have shown that any achievement increases yielded by new technology usage wears away as people become more familiarized.
When the authors were discussing novelty, they identified it as deserving the least amount of consideration when deciding on implementing and spending for new technologies. However, I feel in education settings where money is always a primary concern and we have limited access to new technologies we need to give this greater consideration. The cautions Bate and Poole raised regarding using new technologies that have not been given adequate testing also hit home with me. This is a part of our budgetary discussions each year in our department. For too long we carved away at our budget for technologies that were underutilized or improperly implemented. There has to be a consolidation of the new technologies effectiveness against any new workload for implementation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelty_effect