IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016 - 88

Animals,
Plants

Vehicles
Transponders
-RFID

People
IoT:
Anywhere, Anytime
Anything
Computer
Systems

Sensors,
Cameras
Actuators

Smart
Appliances

FIGURE 6. The IoT and the connection of machines in the physical
world.

Virtual and Physical Realm
People

People
IoT:
Active Intelligent
Systems

People
Smart
Device

People
People

Sensors,
Cameras
Social Networks

FIGURE 7. The third stage of the technological evolution.

Technologically mediated social networks should not
be viewed only in terms of services (such as Facebook or
LinkedIn). We believe that the social network paradigm can
help in understanding and predicting the evolution of human
society with the quantity and quality of (trusted) social network connections governing information exchange and task
specialization, leading to innovation and the capacity to create new knowledge. This perspective is supported in the work
of Bettencourt [8].

DISCUSSION
In the example given in the introduction of this article, IoT
cameras, sensors, and other information systems at the shop
provided the primary information required for the system to
start the sales process. Using big data and data-mining technologies, the system selected the best sales strategy from its
knowledge database after profiling the man's appearance and
his behavior. The selected strategy aimed to create and
strengthen a social affordance between the man and the saleswoman, and a persuasion system was used to try to conclude
the sale of the item. Such persuasion systems are an evolution
of the suggestion/recommendation systems already in use in
e-commerce, and their action in the real world becomes viable due to the stronger social affordance capacity imparted by
the IoT. The price the man finally paid for the item was deter88 IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine

JULY 2016

mined by the system after tracking the man's image at other
shops to find the best price he had seen previously.
In the contract agreed with the IoT service provider, the
system was allowed to access and control IoT devices in the
shop. In this example, the service provider could have contracts with thousands of shops worldwide using the huge
influx of data and information to perfect its system. It could
undertake experiments in the real world, randomly changing
parameters and behaviors using genetic algorithms and creating and maintaining a knowledge system. It is important to
note that, in principle, there is no privacy concern in this
example because the data captured were not used to identify
the individual but instead were used for the purposes of profiling, classification, and grouping. However, there is a clear
ethical question: Is it right to build and operate a persuasion
system? In synthesis, what might be the positive and negative
effects of computer intermediation on social networks? The
following possibilities can be considered.

MUTUAL TRUST AND MEDIATED SOCIAL NETWORKS
Mutual trust requires continuous feedback from the members of
a community, whether virtual or physically present. The use, for
example, of disguisers [5] in social networks with the intention
of deceiving people by altering the informational content of
messages can seriously affect mutual trust in social networks
but not necessarily in a negative way. Disguisers and virtual
robots can be used to construct and maintain strong relationships in a social group using algorithms designed specifically to
reinforce social affordances by building mutual trust.
IoT mediation creates services that facilitate, expand, and
strengthen social networks: search services, services that
allow efficient use of time dedicated to social connections,
and services that enable the sharing of ideas and experiences.
However, searches can embed biases; the sharing of ideas and
experiences can be filtered, and virtual entities can interfere
in relationships generating misinformation and targeted opinions. Human relationships will be more sensitive to the social
affordances and technoaffordances provided by IoT systems
and consequently to their improper behavior and failure as
well as to the effects intended by the owners of the systems
and to the hackers that succeed in invading the system. Cases,
such as the experiment described by Kramer et al. [3] in
which 689,003 Facebook users had their emoticons modified
without their consent are examples of the manipulation of
individuals by mediated social interactions.

SYSTEMS WITH A PURPOSE
With the IoT, it will be possible for computer systems to interact
with the real physical world, including people, machines, and
the environment. Sensors and actuators will provide feedback to
the systems built for specific purposes, allowing these systems to
measure the impacts that their actions have in the real world.
Data from the environmental realm can be merged, compared,
and/or checked with data from the virtual realm of the Internet,
integrating the physical and virtual worlds. Systems intended for
the purposes of persuasion [6] can use the IoT (with disguisers

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016