Technomyopia

Technomyopia is a term coined by Roger Fidler in his book Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media. Fidler defines technomyopia as “a strange phenomenon that causes us to overestimate the potential short-term impacts of a new technology. And when the world fails to conform to our inflated expectations, we turn around and we underestimate the long-term implications. First we overshoot and then we undershoot”. Fidler describes a process in which the public over-exaggerates the benefits of a technology and then, when it does not live up to the public’s expectations, underestimates the impact.
Most companies expect a graph with a gradual upward slope of their new technology when it comes out in the market. Most of the time, however, this is incorrect. Companies look for an upward trend, when what actually happens is a pattern of “moderate ups and downs”. These fluctuations eventually lead to a major “up”, which in turn creates success in the market. When consumers learn about and start to believe that a technology is useful, it leads to major ups. Because of this belief in the product, consumers start to buy it at the same time.
The ups and downs that happen when a new technology is adopted could be because of “the surprise factor” of it. People who purchase the product do not know everything about it yet. At first, people are excited and buy a lot of the product, but once they find reasons why it is not as great as it first seemed a drop occurs in the market.
Fidler compares this process to a roller coaster. When a new technology is invented or discovered the public expects great things and experiences a stage of euphoria where the technology receives a lot of attention and press. However, once the initial “rush of excitement” gets undercut by setbacks, the public dismisses the technology and the excitement is over.

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