How and what to study about IoT: Research trends and future directions from the perspective of social science

The Internet of Things (IoT), as a new growth engine of the information and communications technology industry, has sparked global enthusiasm. However, academic deliberation has concentrated on technological aspects, discounting the multifaceted nature of IoT. Therefore, we reviewed non-technical papers to examine the current status of scholarly discourse and applied analytic hierarchy process models to assess the priorities for future IoT research. Although papers in science and engineering fields were excluded, analysis of 300 articles showed that a considerable number of papers were written by engineers, mainly concerning industrial content. Experts perceived that systematic methods and tangible subjects were the most necessary to motivate research in the social sciences sector. Multidisciplinary research was considered important regardless of the research disciplines, and user study was assigned a particularly large weight. According to the results, implications and suggestions for future IoT research are discussed.