Introduction
The internet of things (IoT) is defined as “a dynamic global network infrastructure with self-configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication protocols where physical and virtual things have identities, physical attributes, and virtual personalities and use intelligent interfaces, and are seamlessly integrated into the information network. [1]” As an overlapped area IoT has been discussed in many research fields such as mobile computing, pervasive computing, wireless sensor networks, and cyber-physical systems [2].
Consequently, the development of IoT involves much of computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering [1]. All these fields address on underlying technologies such as real-time computing [3], machine learning [4], security [5], [6] and privacy [7], an algorithm for sensor networking [8], big data [9] and others. However, these technical approaches cannot guarantee safe and efficient interactions between humans and IoT platform, so-called Social Internet of Things (SIoT) [2], [10]. Although “human-in-the-loop” as an engineering model can offer opportunities to a broad range of applications including health care [11], smart home [12] and city [13], it is still a challenge on how to bring back human work practices [14] with IoT platform into the loop since its complexity of human behavior.
Recently, Atzori et al.[15] extent that the social internet of things is defined as an IoT where things are capable of establishing social relationships with other objects, automously with respect of humans. In this matter, the structure of the ‘things’ can be shaped as network navigability, so as to effectively perform the discovery of objects and services and to ensure scalability as in human social networks. They argue that a level of trustworthiness can be established for leveraging the degree of interaction among things that are friends. Moreover, the connected ‘things’ through the trustworthiness as social network can be reused to address IoT related issues (intrinsically related to extensive networks of interconnected objects). This approach distinguishes the social world and technical world, hoping that IoT developers can implement a platform to enable end-users to design a technical solution.
Although trustworthiness can be established and ‘things’ can be discovered, the power of interaction among social and technical world which may shape and reshape the structure of IoT platform seems missing. However, it is necessary to unpack this missing box since end-users’ work practices are the fundamental basis for IoT development. Without knowing the work practices of end-users, it may introduce significant price of evaluating and changing the IoT platform towards to meet work practices of end-users [10], [14]. Thus, we present an understanding of how phenomenology of the lived body serves as a design framework to reveal the interaction between humans and technologies to support the design of Social Internet of Things. We assert that SIoT is not only a technical platform for supporting human work. It also a platform that is shaped via human work practices. Through configuring network infrastructures, Phenomenology helps IoT developers to unpack the process of making a useful SIoT platform through indicating how to consider the interaction between human and technologies as safe and effective resources for the development of SIoT.
In this paper, as a backdrop to identifying research questions, section II introduces who is the user during the development of SIoT platform. The discussion is about the usefulness of SIoT platform. Also, SIoT developers themselves are the users in SIoT field. Section IV presents a tale of Phenomenology, and its applies in design research. The research discussed is representative and exploratory rather than complete. The purpose of discussing why SIoT needs theory. The goal of the paper is to highlight how Phenomenology could contribute to SIoT development. Section IV presents a paradigm shift from technical work to the combination of social and technical work with the purpose to understand the materiality in SIoT development. The paper concludes in section V.