When urban meets rural : the interactive effect of location, age, and education on technology adoption

The authors aim to examine the relationships between technology adoption speed and socioeconomic variables. A large scale population survey was conducted, through the use of Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI), on respondents from both rural and urban Australian locations (n= 1,289). This research demonstrates a significant interactive effect between location (urban versus rural), age, and education level, when both gender and income are controlled, on technology adoption speed. The authors find that urban consumers have an advantage over rural consumers, in terms of technology adoption speed, only when the consumer is young and has a low level of education.