What is the Internet of Behaviour (IoB)?

The Internet of Behavior or IoB (Internet of Behaviour) was one of the technological trends for the year 2021. The IoB will gradually become more pervasive in companies and society, also driven in part by the advance of 5G technology. It is a step towards transforming the IoT to the IoB, but do we know these concepts?

How did we move from the Internet of Things to the Internet of Behavior?

Before we continue, let’s look at some of the basic concepts, work, and practical examples that enabled me to write me a paper:

IoT or Internet of Things

This concept refers to everyday objects connected to the Internet. But we are not only talking about the simplest things, such as a laptop, but we could also include other objects such as a refrigerator, a thermostat, or a vacuum cleaner. Thanks to this, they can provide us with data about their state or surroundings to convert it into useful information and act accordingly.

IoT is applied to numerous sectors such as health. It can improve diagnoses or treatments, as it can be connected to different devices that collect medical information from the patient and share it with other medical centers. This way, we can evaluate it and decide the best treatment to prescribe.

IoE or Internet of Everything

The IoE takes us a step further. Instead of the Internet of Things, we now talk about any entity, be it people, animals, machines, or objects, to establish more relevant network connections that allow us to convert the information related to them into new possibilities.

Smart cities are based on this concept, and if we look specifically at our country, Barcelona is one of the cities that has made the most vital commitment to this concept. A real example can be seen in Google Maps and how we interact with the application to guide us through our GPS.

Another functionality of this tool is to establish the traffic volume on the roads using the number of cell phone signals passing through that area. This way, Google Maps can provide real-time traffic jams in certain cities thanks to users.

Another application of this IoE would be the one used in intelligent farms. In this case, the use of specific sensors in the locations of the property or farm that can detect temperature, humidity, brightness, or noise and in the animals themselves, which help us date the distance traveled, routes through GPS, body temperature, and heart rate.

This information can later be anonymized to understand their safety, activity, or welfare patterns and intervene if necessary. This information could also be used later in the animal welfare certification used by some livestock companies or for the certificate of designation of origin through blockchain.

IoT or Internet of Behavior

The IRB provides precious information gathered from people’s habits and behaviors. It is worth emphasizing the forecast of the consulting firm Gartner that considers that by 2023 the individual activities of 40% of people will be digitally tracked from IoB worldwide. However, to understand IoB, we must consider it as a combination of three fields:

– Technology.

– Data analytics.

– Behavioral science.

Let’s take the example of an individual’s use of a nutrition app (technology). In it, he includes:

• All the food he eats daily, the amount of water.
• Physical activity.
• Alcohol consumed per week. And height.

This data about your habits are analyzed, where behavioral science comes into play. Depending on your goals set based on a certain weight or body mass index or fat, a series of recommendations are established for eating habits, physical activity, hydration, and rest, thus influencing your behavior and correcting it to improve your state of health.

In addition, IoB works by combining technologies focused directly on the individual, such as Big Data, facial recognition, or geolocation, to connect the results with behavioral patterns.

How does the Behavioral Internet influence consumer behavior?

So far, we have seen the evolution from the Internet of Things to the Behavioral Internet, but let’s go a little further and learn about the benefits we will obtain by influencing consumers:

– Influencing people’s behavior: thanks to this source, we can require the user to use specific elements to comply with protocols or standards, such as the mask.

– Data collection: undoubtedly something precious since it allows us to get a vast amount of information from users that will enable us to make decisions later. Thanks to this, we will improve the user’s experience. It can be found in e-commerce platforms where an evaluation of the service is requested afterward to know the buyer’s sensations and solve possible errors through active customer service.

– Personalized offers: there are different companies that, thanks to the collection of user data, personalize offers according to their own needs. One example is insurance companies that, by focusing on kilometers traveled and vehicle usage, make their best proposals to the customer.

The potential of the IoB lies in collecting this user behavior data, relating it to data from other sources, analyzing it, and correcting, enhancing, or personalizing behaviors or products such as health insurance, car insurance, or TV series.

IoB obstacles

The reality is that the Behavioral Internet still has a long way to go and will not find its maximum exponent until a few years. For this reason, it is also worth reviewing some of the problems that we may encounter:

– There is a doubt or legal vacuum, beyond the provisions of the GDPR, to what extent companies can collect some of these behavioral data of individuals or users. Besides being something complicated to control.

– What is the use of this data: this is the following question in today’s world, where users’ privacy is to be protected. We can only trust that the company will use all the collected data correctly, using them only for purposes related to the indicated activity, and think that they will not be sold to third parties, but, as we have already noted, this is mere supposition. There is nothing that certifies it, and we can only trust.

– Cybersecurity problems: this problem is always present, and no one can assure us that they cannot be subject to attacks and massive data filtering, causing great distrust.

Throughout the text, we have reviewed the pros and cons. Now it is up to the companies to decide its gradual implementation and, of course, the correct use of the data.

Bio:

Elissa Smart is an omnipotent demiurge behind PaperHelp’s blog. Driven by seething creativity, she helps students with thorough research and writing requests and finds the energy to share her extensive expertise via blog posts.