How Ready Are You for New Technology?
The push to try the new thing, and the pull that makes you hesitate
Long before smartphones or AI chatbots existed, marketing researchers noticed that people's willingness to adopt new technology did not come down to one simple attitude, but to four that pull in different directions at once: two that push you toward the new thing, and two that hold you back, often all four active in the same person at the same time. The scale that measures this has been updated once already, as flip phones gave way to always-on devices, and it still holds up because the four forces themselves have not changed, only what triggers them.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about technology in general, not about one app or gadget you happen to love or hate.
What it measures
The four confirmed dimensions of the Technology Readiness Index: optimism, a positive view of what technology can do for you; innovativeness, wanting to be among the first to try it; discomfort, feeling overwhelmed or out of control around it; and insecurity, distrust of whether it will work as promised or keep you safe. The first two push you toward new technology and the last two hold you back, and most people carry some of all four at once. This is not our AI-trust test, which is about one specific technology and how you use it day to day, and not our phone-habit test, which is about one device rather than technology in general.
Based on: Technology Readiness Index (Parasuraman, 2000; TRI 2.0, Parasuraman & Colby, 2015)
Possible results
Optimism
A positive view of what technology can do for you.
Innovativeness
Wanting to be among the first to try something new.
Discomfort
Feeling overwhelmed or out of control around technology.
Insecurity
Distrust of whether technology will work as promised or keep you safe.
Common questions
Is this the same as your AI-trust test?
No. The AI-trust test looks at one specific technology and how you actually use it day to day - how much you rely on it, whether you check its answers. This test is about your general disposition toward technology as a whole, across gadgets, apps and systems you have not even encountered yet.
Can I be high on optimism and high on insecurity at the same time?
Yes, and it is common. You can genuinely believe technology improves your life while also distrusting specific companies or systems with your data - the original research treats these as separate dimensions precisely because they do not cancel each other out in real people.
Which score is the 'best' one to have?
None of them, on their own. High optimism and innovativeness with low discomfort and insecurity predicts fast adoption of new tools, which is useful in some jobs and unnecessary in others; a healthy dose of insecurity has also kept plenty of people from oversharing data with something that deserved less trust than it got. The profile that suits you depends on what you actually need technology to do for you.
Does this change as new technology appears?
The specific triggers change constantly - what felt overwhelming a decade ago (a touchscreen, a cloud drive) is routine now, replaced by new sources of the same feelings (AI tools, wearables). The underlying dispositions measured here have stayed stable enough that the scale was updated once, not rebuilt, when the technology around it changed completely.
Sources
- Parasuraman, A. (2000). Technology Readiness Index (TRI): A Multiple-Item Scale to Measure Readiness to Embrace New Technologies. Journal of Service Research. doi:10.1177/109467050024001
- Parasuraman, A., & Colby, C. L. (2015). An Updated and Streamlined Technology Readiness Index: TRI 2.0. Journal of Service Research. doi:10.1177/1094670514539730
An honest note This adapts the Technology Readiness Index (TRI) and its 2015 update; wording is Quinthea's own, so scores are not comparable to published norms. The four bars are drivers and inhibitors of technology adoption, not a single good-to-bad scale - a high score on discomfort or insecurity is not a flaw, and a high score on optimism or innovativeness is not automatically good judgement. The scale describes a general disposition toward technology as a category, not your skill with any specific tool.