Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.

Businesses in the smart home sector are actively promoting the benefits of smart home technologies for consumers, such as convenience, economy and home security. To better understand meanings of and trust in the smart home, we carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed t...

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Main Authors: Sara Cannizzaro, Rob Procter, Sinong Ma, Carsten Maple
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231615
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author Sara Cannizzaro
Rob Procter
Sinong Ma
Carsten Maple
author_facet Sara Cannizzaro
Rob Procter
Sinong Ma
Carsten Maple
author_sort Sara Cannizzaro
collection DOAJ
description Businesses in the smart home sector are actively promoting the benefits of smart home technologies for consumers, such as convenience, economy and home security. To better understand meanings of and trust in the smart home, we carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed to measure adoption and acceptability, focusing on awareness, ownership, experience, trust, satisfaction and intention to use. We analysed the results using theories of meanings and acceptability of technologies including semiotics, social construction of technology (SCOT) and sociotechnical affordance. Our findings suggest that the meaning and value proposition of the smart home have not yet achieved closure for consumers, but is already foregrounding risks to privacy and security amongst the other meaning-making possibilities it could afford. Anxiety about the likelihood of a security incident emerges as a prominent factor influencing adoption of smart home technology. This factor negatively impacts adoption. These findings underline how businesses and policymakers will need to work together to act on the sociotechnical affordances of smart home technology in order to increase consumers' trust. This intervention is necessary if barriers to adoption and acceptability of the smart home are to be addressed now and in the future.
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spelling doaj.art-a7b57e3ae2f3445483ce680bd991ec332022-12-21T19:16:44ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032020-01-01155e023161510.1371/journal.pone.0231615Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.Sara CannizzaroRob ProcterSinong MaCarsten MapleBusinesses in the smart home sector are actively promoting the benefits of smart home technologies for consumers, such as convenience, economy and home security. To better understand meanings of and trust in the smart home, we carried out a nationally representative survey of UK consumers designed to measure adoption and acceptability, focusing on awareness, ownership, experience, trust, satisfaction and intention to use. We analysed the results using theories of meanings and acceptability of technologies including semiotics, social construction of technology (SCOT) and sociotechnical affordance. Our findings suggest that the meaning and value proposition of the smart home have not yet achieved closure for consumers, but is already foregrounding risks to privacy and security amongst the other meaning-making possibilities it could afford. Anxiety about the likelihood of a security incident emerges as a prominent factor influencing adoption of smart home technology. This factor negatively impacts adoption. These findings underline how businesses and policymakers will need to work together to act on the sociotechnical affordances of smart home technology in order to increase consumers' trust. This intervention is necessary if barriers to adoption and acceptability of the smart home are to be addressed now and in the future.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231615
spellingShingle Sara Cannizzaro
Rob Procter
Sinong Ma
Carsten Maple
Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
PLoS ONE
title Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
title_full Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
title_fullStr Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
title_full_unstemmed Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
title_short Trust in the smart home: Findings from a nationally representative survey in the UK.
title_sort trust in the smart home findings from a nationally representative survey in the uk
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231615
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