The Internet of Things (IoT) is more complex and abstract than previous information and communication technologies as there are many connections occurring. New challenges for users arise from increased amount of data, decisions made automatically, less visibility and more ambiguity, and magnified security and privacy risks. There is a fair chance that only a selective group will benefit, making it important to study IoT from a digital inequality perspective. The current study focused on health, home, and security related IoT by conducting a survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population. The study was guided by resources and appropriation theory. IoT attitudes and material access as well as educational and income differences play an important role. Those with higher education and those with higher incomes have more positive attitudes and are the first to actually buy IoT. This also means that they are the first to develop the required skills and to engage in a diverse IoT use. The results suggest that to make the IoT attractive for larger parts of the population, clear terms of use and user-friendly IoT should be an important objective. Stimulating positive attitudes towards IoT will increase the likelihood of IoT ownership, development of IoT skills, and, eventually, a wider diversity of IoT use. Policies should aim to stress the potential outcomes IoT has to offer and should promote transparency and disclosure of how personal data is used as well as better privacy, security practices and regulation.
The Movement for Black Lives has connected millions of people online. How are their outrage and hope mediated through social media? To address this question, this article extends Randall Collins’s Interaction Ritual Theory to social media. Employing semisupervised image recognition methods on a million Instagram posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, we identify four different interaction ritual types, each with distinct geographies. Instagram posts featuring interactions with physical copresence are concentrated in urban areas. We identify two different types of such areas: arenas where contention plays out and milieus where movement identities are affirmed. Instagram posts that do not feature physical copresence are more geographically dispersed. These posts, including memes and selfies, allow people to engage with the movement even when they are not embedded in activist environments. Our analysis helps to understand how different forms of engagement are embedded in particular places and connected through the circulation of social media posts.
In this article, we set out to explain different types of social uses of the Internet of Things (IoT) using forms of capital and Internet skills. We argue that the IoT platform entices different manners of social communication that are easily overlooked when focusing on the novelty of smart "things." How people use the IoT socially is crucial in trying to understand how people create, maintain, or absolve social relations in a networked society. We find inversed effects for social capital, income and education on private use, and on sharing IoT data with a partner. Sharing with acquaintances and strangers is predicted by cultural activities. Sharing IoT data with acquaintances can especially be attributed to social relations that escape the immediate household. We conclude that varying figurations of capital and Internet skills predict how the IoT is used socially.
As the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming the next frontier for the digital divide, we argue that access to most of the IoT and its benefits are hindered by vendor lock-in. Yet, people with an advanced set of operational skills can find creative ways to overcome vendor lock-in. In this article, we study socio-contextual dispositions to why some people are better able to capitalize on IoT benefits creatively than others. We use interview data and a novel approach to a diary study using a mobile application among 30 households. By focusing on vendor lock-in against the interplay between operational skills and creative IoT uses, we find those with the least access to IoT benefits are users who mainly task-oriented and consider IoT tools to solve specific problems. Those with a more play orientation are better positioned to access IoT benefits and further develop their operational skills.
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