The Cigarette

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Our society's dooming innovation.  Through Roger's Diffusion of Innovations, we can see that cigarettes fit his model perfectly.  In the mid-1800s, cigarettes were created.  After the pioneers set this product into society, the most early adopters were Civil War soldiers.  They were used as something they could relax with after the war.  The tipping point would be somewhere between 1955 and 1960.  This was an incredibly fascinating era of our country indeed.  Everyone and their mother had a cigarette in their hand.  This was obviously before anyone knew the long-term effects of smoking (similar to the Juul epidemic now), and they became something that people would do anytime and anywhere.  The late adopters would be the younger generation that had some knowledge of their cancerous effects.  Quickly the product were saturated and brought down to a moderate level, with anti-smoking ad campaigns and people not being allowed to smoke them in restaurants and various other public places.  They brought on a negative stigma and are now looked at in the opposite way from when they were first becoming popular.  There will always be laggards due to nicotine being addictive.  Some will just never stop because they just can't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations
Image result for mad men cigarette

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