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Study and Investigation on 5G Technology: A Systematic Review

Ramraj dangi.

1 School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT University Bhopal, Bhopal 466114, India; [email protected] (R.D.); [email protected] (P.L.)

Praveen Lalwani

Gaurav choudhary.

2 Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark; moc.liamg@7777yrahduohcvaruag

3 Department of Information Security Engineering, Soonchunhyang University, Asan-si 31538, Korea

Giovanni Pau

4 Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Kore University of Enna, 94100 Enna, Italy; [email protected]

Associated Data

Not applicable.

In wireless communication, Fifth Generation (5G) Technology is a recent generation of mobile networks. In this paper, evaluations in the field of mobile communication technology are presented. In each evolution, multiple challenges were faced that were captured with the help of next-generation mobile networks. Among all the previously existing mobile networks, 5G provides a high-speed internet facility, anytime, anywhere, for everyone. 5G is slightly different due to its novel features such as interconnecting people, controlling devices, objects, and machines. 5G mobile system will bring diverse levels of performance and capability, which will serve as new user experiences and connect new enterprises. Therefore, it is essential to know where the enterprise can utilize the benefits of 5G. In this research article, it was observed that extensive research and analysis unfolds different aspects, namely, millimeter wave (mmWave), massive multiple-input and multiple-output (Massive-MIMO), small cell, mobile edge computing (MEC), beamforming, different antenna technology, etc. This article’s main aim is to highlight some of the most recent enhancements made towards the 5G mobile system and discuss its future research objectives.

1. Introduction

Most recently, in three decades, rapid growth was marked in the field of wireless communication concerning the transition of 1G to 4G [ 1 , 2 ]. The main motto behind this research was the requirements of high bandwidth and very low latency. 5G provides a high data rate, improved quality of service (QoS), low-latency, high coverage, high reliability, and economically affordable services. 5G delivers services categorized into three categories: (1) Extreme mobile broadband (eMBB). It is a nonstandalone architecture that offers high-speed internet connectivity, greater bandwidth, moderate latency, UltraHD streaming videos, virtual reality and augmented reality (AR/VR) media, and many more. (2) Massive machine type communication (eMTC), 3GPP releases it in its 13th specification. It provides long-range and broadband machine-type communication at a very cost-effective price with less power consumption. eMTC brings a high data rate service, low power, extended coverage via less device complexity through mobile carriers for IoT applications. (3) ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) offers low-latency and ultra-high reliability, rich quality of service (QoS), which is not possible with traditional mobile network architecture. URLLC is designed for on-demand real-time interaction such as remote surgery, vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication, industry 4.0, smart grids, intelligent transport system, etc. [ 3 ].

1.1. Evolution from 1G to 5G

First generation (1G): 1G cell phone was launched between the 1970s and 80s, based on analog technology, which works just like a landline phone. It suffers in various ways, such as poor battery life, voice quality, and dropped calls. In 1G, the maximum achievable speed was 2.4 Kbps.

Second Generation (2G): In 2G, the first digital system was offered in 1991, providing improved mobile voice communication over 1G. In addition, Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and Global System for Mobile (GSM) concepts were also discussed. In 2G, the maximum achievable speed was 1 Mpbs.

Third Generation (3G): When technology ventured from 2G GSM frameworks into 3G universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) framework, users encountered higher system speed and quicker download speed making constant video calls. 3G was the first mobile broadband system that was formed to provide the voice with some multimedia. The technology behind 3G was high-speed packet access (HSPA/HSPA+). 3G used MIMO for multiplying the power of the wireless network, and it also used packet switching for fast data transmission.

Fourth Generation (4G): It is purely mobile broadband standard. In digital mobile communication, it was observed information rate that upgraded from 20 to 60 Mbps in 4G [ 4 ]. It works on LTE and WiMAX technologies, as well as provides wider bandwidth up to 100 Mhz. It was launched in 2010.

Fourth Generation LTE-A (4.5G): It is an advanced version of standard 4G LTE. LTE-A uses MIMO technology to combine multiple antennas for both transmitters as well as a receiver. Using MIMO, multiple signals and multiple antennas can work simultaneously, making LTE-A three times faster than standard 4G. LTE-A offered an improved system limit, decreased deferral in the application server, access triple traffic (Data, Voice, and Video) wirelessly at any time anywhere in the world.LTE-A delivers speeds of over 42 Mbps and up to 90 Mbps.

Fifth Generation (5G): 5G is a pillar of digital transformation; it is a real improvement on all the previous mobile generation networks. 5G brings three different services for end user like Extreme mobile broadband (eMBB). It offers high-speed internet connectivity, greater bandwidth, moderate latency, UltraHD streaming videos, virtual reality and augmented reality (AR/VR) media, and many more. Massive machine type communication (eMTC), it provides long-range and broadband machine-type communication at a very cost-effective price with less power consumption. eMTC brings a high data rate service, low power, extended coverage via less device complexity through mobile carriers for IoT applications. Ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) offers low-latency and ultra-high reliability, rich quality of service (QoS), which is not possible with traditional mobile network architecture. URLLC is designed for on-demand real-time interaction such as remote surgery, vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication, industry 4.0, smart grids, intelligent transport system, etc. 5G faster than 4G and offers remote-controlled operation over a reliable network with zero delays. It provides down-link maximum throughput of up to 20 Gbps. In addition, 5G also supports 4G WWWW (4th Generation World Wide Wireless Web) [ 5 ] and is based on Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol. 5G provides unlimited internet connection at your convenience, anytime, anywhere with extremely high speed, high throughput, low-latency, higher reliability and scalability, and energy-efficient mobile communication technology [ 6 ]. 5G mainly divided in two parts 6 GHz 5G and Millimeter wave(mmWave) 5G.

6 GHz is a mid frequency band which works as a mid point between capacity and coverage to offer perfect environment for 5G connectivity. 6 GHz spectrum will provide high bandwidth with improved network performance. It offers continuous channels that will reduce the need for network densification when mid-band spectrum is not available and it makes 5G connectivity affordable at anytime, anywhere for everyone.

mmWave is an essential technology of 5G network which build high performance network. 5G mmWave offer diverse services that is why all network providers should add on this technology in their 5G deployment planning. There are lots of service providers who deployed 5G mmWave, and their simulation result shows that 5G mmwave is a far less used spectrum. It provides very high speed wireless communication and it also offers ultra-wide bandwidth for next generation mobile network.

The evolution of wireless mobile technologies are presented in Table 1 . The abbreviations used in this paper are mentioned in Table 2 .

Summary of Mobile Technology.

Table of Notations and Abbreviations.

1.2. Key Contributions

The objective of this survey is to provide a detailed guide of 5G key technologies, methods to researchers, and to help with understanding how the recent works addressed 5G problems and developed solutions to tackle the 5G challenges; i.e., what are new methods that must be applied and how can they solve problems? Highlights of the research article are as follows.

• This survey focused on the recent trends and development in the era of 5G and novel contributions by the researcher community and discussed technical details on essential aspects of the 5G advancement.
• In this paper, the evolution of the mobile network from 1G to 5G is presented. In addition, the growth of mobile communication under different attributes is also discussed.
• This paper covers the emerging applications and research groups working on 5G & different research areas in 5G wireless communication network with a descriptive taxonomy.
• This survey discusses the current vision of the 5G networks, advantages, applications, key technologies, and key features. Furthermore, machine learning prospects are also explored with the emerging requirements in the 5G era. The article also focused on technical aspects of 5G IoT Based approaches and optimization techniques for 5G.
• we provide an extensive overview and recent advancement of emerging technologies of 5G mobile network, namely, MIMO, Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), mmWave, Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), and optimization. Also, a technical summary is discussed by highlighting the context of current approaches and corresponding challenges.
• Security challenges and considerations while developing 5G technology are discussed.
• Finally, the paper concludes with the future directives.

The existing survey focused on architecture, key concepts, and implementation challenges and issues. In contrast, this survey covers the state-of-the-art techniques as well as corresponding recent novel developments by researchers. Various recent significant papers are discussed with the key technologies accelerating the development and production of 5G products.

2. Existing Surveys and Their Applicability

In this paper, a detailed survey on various technologies of 5G networks is presented. Various researchers have worked on different technologies of 5G networks. In this section, Table 3 gives a tabular representation of existing surveys of 5G networks. Massive MIMO, NOMA, small cell, mmWave, beamforming, and MEC are the six main pillars that helped to implement 5G networks in real life.

A comparative overview of existing surveys on different technologies of 5G networks.

2.1. Limitations of Existing Surveys

The existing survey focused on architecture, key concepts, and implementation challenges and issues. The numerous current surveys focused on various 5G technologies with different parameters, and the authors did not cover all the technologies of the 5G network in detail with challenges and recent advancements. Few authors worked on MIMO (Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access) NOMA, MEC, small cell technologies. In contrast, some others worked on beamforming, Millimeter-wave (mmWave). But the existing survey did not cover all the technologies of the 5G network from a research and advancement perspective. No detailed survey is available in the market covering all the 5G network technologies and currently published research trade-offs. So, our main aim is to give a detailed study of all the technologies working on the 5G network. In contrast, this survey covers the state-of-the-art techniques as well as corresponding recent novel developments by researchers. Various recent significant papers are discussed with the key technologies accelerating the development and production of 5G products. This survey article collected key information about 5G technology and recent advancements, and it can be a kind of a guide for the reader. This survey provides an umbrella approach to bring multiple solutions and recent improvements in a single place to accelerate the 5G research with the latest key enabling solutions and reviews. A systematic layout representation of the survey in Figure 1 . We provide a state-of-the-art comparative overview of the existing surveys on different technologies of 5G networks in Table 3 .

Systematic layout representation of survey.

2.2. Article Organization

This article is organized under the following sections. Section 2 presents existing surveys and their applicability. In Section 3 , the preliminaries of 5G technology are presented. In Section 4 , recent advances of 5G technology based on Massive MIMO, NOMA, Millimeter Wave, 5G with IoT, machine learning for 5G, and Optimization in 5G are provided. In Section 5 , a description of novel 5G features over 4G is provided. Section 6 covered all the security concerns of the 5G network. Section 7 , 5G technology based on above-stated challenges summarize in tabular form. Finally, Section 8 and Section 9 conclude the study, which paves the path for future research.

3. Preliminary Section

3.1. emerging 5g paradigms and its features.

5G provides very high speed, low latency, and highly salable connectivity between multiple devices and IoT worldwide. 5G will provide a very flexible model to develop a modern generation of applications and industry goals [ 26 , 27 ]. There are many services offered by 5G network architecture are stated below:

Massive machine to machine communications: 5G offers novel, massive machine-to-machine communications [ 28 ], also known as the IoT [ 29 ], that provide connectivity between lots of machines without any involvement of humans. This service enhances the applications of 5G and provides connectivity between agriculture, construction, and industries [ 30 ].

Ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC): This service offers real-time management of machines, high-speed vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity, industrial connectivity and security principles, and highly secure transport system, and multiple autonomous actions. Low latency communications also clear up a different area where remote medical care, procedures, and operation are all achievable [ 31 ].

Enhanced mobile broadband: Enhance mobile broadband is an important use case of 5G system, which uses massive MIMO antenna, mmWave, beamforming techniques to offer very high-speed connectivity across a wide range of areas [ 32 ].

For communities: 5G provides a very flexible internet connection between lots of machines to make smart homes, smart schools, smart laboratories, safer and smart automobiles, and good health care centers [ 33 ].

For businesses and industry: As 5G works on higher spectrum ranges from 24 to 100 GHz. This higher frequency range provides secure low latency communication and high-speed wireless connectivity between IoT devices and industry 4.0, which opens a market for end-users to enhance their business models [ 34 ].

New and Emerging technologies: As 5G came up with many new technologies like beamforming, massive MIMO, mmWave, small cell, NOMA, MEC, and network slicing, it introduced many new features to the market. Like virtual reality (VR), users can experience the physical presence of people who are millions of kilometers away from them. Many new technologies like smart homes, smart workplaces, smart schools, smart sports academy also came into the market with this 5G Mobile network model [ 35 ].

3.2. Commercial Service Providers of 5G

5G provides high-speed internet browsing, streaming, and downloading with very high reliability and low latency. 5G network will change your working style, and it will increase new business opportunities and provide innovations that we cannot imagine. This section covers top service providers of 5G network [ 36 , 37 ].

Ericsson: Ericsson is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company, investing around 25.62 billion USD in 5G network, which makes it the biggest telecommunication company. It claims that it is the only company working on all the continents to make the 5G network a global standard for the next generation wireless communication. Ericsson developed the first 5G radio prototype that enables the operators to set up the live field trials in their network, which helps operators understand how 5G reacts. It plays a vital role in the development of 5G hardware. It currently provides 5G services in over 27 countries with content providers like China Mobile, GCI, LGU+, AT&T, Rogers, and many more. It has 100 commercial agreements with different operators as of 2020.

Verizon: It is American multinational telecommunication which was founded in 1983. Verizon started offering 5G services in April 2020, and by December 2020, it has actively provided 5G services in 30 cities of the USA. They planned that by the end of 2021, they would deploy 5G in 30 more new cities. Verizon deployed a 5G network on mmWave, a very high band spectrum between 30 to 300 GHz. As it is a significantly less used spectrum, it provides very high-speed wireless communication. MmWave offers ultra-wide bandwidth for next-generation mobile networks. MmWave is a faster and high-band spectrum that has a limited range. Verizon planned to increase its number of 5G cells by 500% by 2020. Verizon also has an ultra wide-band flagship 5G service which is the best 5G service that increases the market price of Verizon.

Nokia: Nokia is a Finnish multinational telecommunications company which was founded in 1865. Nokia is one of the companies which adopted 5G technology very early. It is developing, researching, and building partnerships with various 5G renders to offer 5G communication as soon as possible. Nokia collaborated with Deutsche Telekom and Hamburg Port Authority and provided them 8000-hectare site for their 5G MoNArch project. Nokia is the only company that supplies 5G technology to all the operators of different countries like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile US and Verizon in the USA, Korea Telecom, LG U+ and SK Telecom in South Korea and NTT DOCOMO, KDDI, and SoftBank in Japan. Presently, Nokia has around 150+ agreements and 29 live networks all over the world. Nokia is continuously working hard on 5G technology to expand 5G networks all over the globe.

AT&T: AT&T is an American multinational company that was the first to deploy a 5G network in reality in 2018. They built a gigabit 5G network connection in Waco, TX, Kalamazoo, MI, and South Bend to achieve this. It is the first company that archives 1–2 gigabit per second speed in 2019. AT&T claims that it provides a 5G network connection among 225 million people worldwide by using a 6 GHz spectrum band.

T-Mobile: T-Mobile US (TMUS) is an American wireless network operator which was the first service provider that offers a real 5G nationwide network. The company knew that high-band 5G was not feasible nationwide, so they used a 600 MHz spectrum to build a significant portion of its 5G network. TMUS is planning that by 2024 they will double the total capacity and triple the full 5G capacity of T-Mobile and Sprint combined. The sprint buyout is helping T-Mobile move forward the company’s current market price to 129.98 USD.

Samsung: Samsung started their research in 5G technology in 2011. In 2013, Samsung successfully developed the world’s first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications. Samsung provides several hundred times faster data transmission than standard 4G for core 5G mobile communication systems. The company achieved a lot of success in the next generation of technology, and it is considered one of the leading companies in the 5G domain.

Qualcomm: Qualcomm is an American multinational corporation in San Diego, California. It is also one of the leading company which is working on 5G chip. Qualcomm’s first 5G modem chip was announced in October 2016, and a prototype was demonstrated in October 2017. Qualcomm mainly focuses on building products while other companies talk about 5G; Qualcomm is building the technologies. According to one magazine, Qualcomm was working on three main areas of 5G networks. Firstly, radios that would use bandwidth from any network it has access to; secondly, creating more extensive ranges of spectrum by combining smaller pieces; and thirdly, a set of services for internet applications.

ZTE Corporation: ZTE Corporation was founded in 1985. It is a partially Chinese state-owned technology company that works in telecommunication. It was a leading company that worked on 4G LTE, and it is still maintaining its value and doing research and tests on 5G. It is the first company that proposed Pre5G technology with some series of solutions.

NEC Corporation: NEC Corporation is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. ZTE also started their research on 5G, and they introduced a new business concept. NEC’s main aim is to develop 5G NR for the global mobile system and create secure and intelligent technologies to realize 5G services.

Cisco: Cisco is a USA networking hardware company that also sleeves up for 5G network. Cisco’s primary focus is to support 5G in three ways: Service—enable 5G services faster so all service providers can increase their business. Infrastructure—build 5G-oriented infrastructure to implement 5G more quickly. Automation—make a more scalable, flexible, and reliable 5G network. The companies know the importance of 5G, and they want to connect more than 30 billion devices in the next couple of years. Cisco intends to work on network hardening as it is a vital part of 5G network. Cisco used AI with deep learning to develop a 5G Security Architecture, enabling Secure Network Transformation.

3.3. 5G Research Groups

Many research groups from all over the world are working on a 5G wireless mobile network [ 38 ]. These groups are continuously working on various aspects of 5G. The list of those research groups are presented as follows: 5GNOW (5th Generation Non-Orthogonal Waveform for Asynchronous Signaling), NEWCOM (Network of Excellence in Wireless Communication), 5GIC (5G Innovation Center), NYU (New York University) Wireless, 5GPPP (5G Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership), EMPHATIC (Enhanced Multi-carrier Technology for Professional Adhoc and Cell-Based Communication), ETRI(Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute), METIS (Mobile and wireless communication Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society) [ 39 ]. The various research groups along with the research area are presented in Table 4 .

Research groups working on 5G mobile networks.

3.4. 5G Applications

5G is faster than 4G and offers remote-controlled operation over a reliable network with zero delays. It provides down-link maximum throughput of up to 20 Gbps. In addition, 5G also supports 4G WWWW (4th Generation World Wide Wireless Web) [ 5 ] and is based on Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) protocol. 5G provides unlimited internet connection at your convenience, anytime, anywhere with extremely high speed, high throughput, low-latency, higher reliability, greater scalablility, and energy-efficient mobile communication technology [ 6 ].

There are lots of applications of 5G mobile network are as follows:

• High-speed mobile network: 5G is an advancement on all the previous mobile network technologies, which offers very high speed downloading speeds 0 of up to 10 to 20 Gbps. The 5G wireless network works as a fiber optic internet connection. 5G is different from all the conventional mobile transmission technologies, and it offers both voice and high-speed data connectivity efficiently. 5G offers very low latency communication of less than a millisecond, useful for autonomous driving and mission-critical applications. 5G will use millimeter waves for data transmission, providing higher bandwidth and a massive data rate than lower LTE bands. As 5 Gis a fast mobile network technology, it will enable virtual access to high processing power and secure and safe access to cloud services and enterprise applications. Small cell is one of the best features of 5G, which brings lots of advantages like high coverage, high-speed data transfer, power saving, easy and fast cloud access, etc. [ 40 ].
• Entertainment and multimedia: In one analysis in 2015, it was found that more than 50 percent of mobile internet traffic was used for video downloading. This trend will surely increase in the future, which will make video streaming more common. 5G will offer High-speed streaming of 4K videos with crystal clear audio, and it will make a high definition virtual world on your mobile. 5G will benefit the entertainment industry as it offers 120 frames per second with high resolution and higher dynamic range video streaming, and HD TV channels can also be accessed on mobile devices without any interruptions. 5G provides low latency high definition communication so augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) will be very easily implemented in the future. Virtual reality games are trendy these days, and many companies are investing in HD virtual reality games. The 5G network will offer high-speed internet connectivity with a better gaming experience [ 41 ].
• Smart homes : smart home appliances and products are in demand these days. The 5G network makes smart homes more real as it offers high-speed connectivity and monitoring of smart appliances. Smart home appliances are easily accessed and configured from remote locations using the 5G network as it offers very high-speed low latency communication.
• Smart cities: 5G wireless network also helps develop smart cities applications such as automatic traffic management, weather update, local area broadcasting, energy-saving, efficient power supply, smart lighting system, water resource management, crowd management, emergency control, etc.
• Industrial IoT: 5G wireless technology will provide lots of features for future industries such as safety, process tracking, smart packing, shipping, energy efficiency, automation of equipment, predictive maintenance, and logistics. 5G smart sensor technology also offers smarter, safer, cost-effective, and energy-saving industrial IoT operations.
• Smart Farming: 5G technology will play a crucial role in agriculture and smart farming. 5G sensors and GPS technology will help farmers track live attacks on crops and manage them quickly. These smart sensors can also be used for irrigation, pest, insect, and electricity control.
• Autonomous Driving: The 5G wireless network offers very low latency high-speed communication, significant for autonomous driving. It means self-driving cars will come to real life soon with 5G wireless networks. Using 5G autonomous cars can easily communicate with smart traffic signs, objects, and other vehicles running on the road. 5G’s low latency feature makes self-driving more real as every millisecond is essential for autonomous vehicles, decision-making is done in microseconds to avoid accidents.
• Healthcare and mission-critical applications: 5G technology will bring modernization in medicine where doctors and practitioners can perform advanced medical procedures. The 5G network will provide connectivity between all classrooms, so attending seminars and lectures will be easier. Through 5G technology, patients can connect with doctors and take their advice. Scientists are building smart medical devices which can help people with chronic medical conditions. The 5G network will boost the healthcare industry with smart devices, the internet of medical things, smart sensors, HD medical imaging technologies, and smart analytics systems. 5G will help access cloud storage, so accessing healthcare data will be very easy from any location worldwide. Doctors and medical practitioners can easily store and share large files like MRI reports within seconds using the 5G network.
• Satellite Internet: In many remote areas, ground base stations are not available, so 5G will play a crucial role in providing connectivity in such areas. The 5G network will provide connectivity using satellite systems, and the satellite system uses a constellation of multiple small satellites to provide connectivity in urban and rural areas across the world.

4. 5G Technologies

This section describes recent advances of 5G Massive MIMO, 5G NOMA, 5G millimeter wave, 5G IOT, 5G with machine learning, and 5G optimization-based approaches. In addition, the summary is also presented in each subsection that paves the researchers for the future research direction.

4.1. 5G Massive MIMO

Multiple-input-multiple-out (MIMO) is a very important technology for wireless systems. It is used for sending and receiving multiple signals simultaneously over the same radio channel. MIMO plays a very big role in WI-FI, 3G, 4G, and 4G LTE-A networks. MIMO is mainly used to achieve high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency but it was not up to the mark MIMO provides low throughput and very low reliable connectivity. To resolve this, lots of MIMO technology like single user MIMO (SU-MIMO), multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) and network MIMO were used. However, these new MIMO also did not still fulfill the demand of end users. Massive MIMO is an advancement of MIMO technology used in the 5G network in which hundreds and thousands of antennas are attached with base stations to increase throughput and spectral efficiency. Multiple transmit and receive antennas are used in massive MIMO to increase the transmission rate and spectral efficiency. When multiple UEs generate downlink traffic simultaneously, massive MIMO gains higher capacity. Massive MIMO uses extra antennas to move energy into smaller regions of space to increase spectral efficiency and throughput [ 43 ]. In traditional systems data collection from smart sensors is a complex task as it increases latency, reduced data rate and reduced reliability. While massive MIMO with beamforming and huge multiplexing techniques can sense data from different sensors with low latency, high data rate and higher reliability. Massive MIMO will help in transmitting the data in real-time collected from different sensors to central monitoring locations for smart sensor applications like self-driving cars, healthcare centers, smart grids, smart cities, smart highways, smart homes, and smart enterprises [ 44 ].

Highlights of 5G Massive MIMO technology are as follows:

• Data rate: Massive MIMO is advised as the one of the dominant technologies to provide wireless high speed and high data rate in the gigabits per seconds.
• The relationship between wave frequency and antenna size: Both are inversely proportional to each other. It means lower frequency signals need a bigger antenna and vise versa.

Pictorial representation of multi-input and multi-output (MIMO).

• MIMO role in 5G: Massive MIMO will play a crucial role in the deployment of future 5G mobile communication as greater spectral and energy efficiency could be enabled.

State-of-the-Art Approaches

Plenty of approaches were proposed to resolve the issues of conventional MIMO [ 7 ].

The MIMO multirate, feed-forward controller is suggested by Mae et al. [ 46 ]. In the simulation, the proposed model generates the smooth control input, unlike the conventional MIMO, which generates oscillated control inputs. It also outperformed concerning the error rate. However, a combination of multirate and single rate can be used for better results.

The performance of stand-alone MIMO, distributed MIMO with and without corporation MIMO, was investigated by Panzner et al. [ 47 ]. In addition, an idea about the integration of large scale in the 5G technology was also presented. In the experimental analysis, different MIMO configurations are considered. The variation in the ratio of overall transmit antennas to spatial is deemed step-wise from equality to ten.

The simulation of massive MIMO noncooperative and cooperative systems for down-link behavior was performed by He et al. [ 48 ]. It depends on present LTE systems, which deal with various antennas in the base station set-up. It was observed that collaboration in different BS improves the system behaviors, whereas throughput is reduced slightly in this approach. However, a new method can be developed which can enhance both system behavior and throughput.

In [ 8 ], different approaches that increased the energy efficiency benefits provided by massive MIMO were presented. They analyzed the massive MIMO technology and described the detailed design of the energy consumption model for massive MIMO systems. This article has explored several techniques to enhance massive MIMO systems’ energy efficiency (EE) gains. This paper reviews standard EE-maximization approaches for the conventional massive MIMO systems, namely, scaling number of antennas, real-time implementing low-complexity operations at the base station (BS), power amplifier losses minimization, and radio frequency (RF) chain minimization requirements. In addition, open research direction is also identified.

In [ 49 ], various existing approaches based on different antenna selection and scheduling, user selection and scheduling, and joint antenna and user scheduling methods adopted in massive MIMO systems are presented in this paper. The objective of this survey article was to make awareness about the current research and future research direction in MIMO for systems. They analyzed that complete utilization of resources and bandwidth was the most crucial factor which enhances the sum rate.

In [ 50 ], authors discussed the development of various techniques for pilot contamination. To calculate the impact of pilot contamination in time division duplex (TDD) massive MIMO system, TDD and frequency division duplexing FDD patterns in massive MIMO techniques are used. They discussed different issues in pilot contamination in TDD massive MIMO systems with all the possible future directions of research. They also classified various techniques to generate the channel information for both pilot-based and subspace-based approaches.

In [ 19 ], the authors defined the uplink and downlink services for a massive MIMO system. In addition, it maintains a performance matrix that measures the impact of pilot contamination on different performances. They also examined the various application of massive MIMO such as small cells, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) schemes, massive MIMO IEEE 802, 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) specifications, and higher frequency bands. They considered their research work crucial for cutting edge massive MIMO and covered many issues like system throughput performance and channel state acquisition at higher frequencies.

In [ 13 ], various approaches were suggested for MIMO future generation wireless communication. They made a comparative study based on performance indicators such as peak data rate, energy efficiency, latency, throughput, etc. The key findings of this survey are as follows: (1) spatial multiplexing improves the energy efficiency; (2) design of MIMO play a vital role in the enhancement of throughput; (3) enhancement of mMIMO focusing on energy & spectral performance; (4) discussed the future challenges to improve the system design.

In [ 51 ], the study of large-scale MIMO systems for an energy-efficient system sharing method was presented. For the resource allocation, circuit energy and transmit energy expenditures were taken into consideration. In addition, the optimization techniques were applied for an energy-efficient resource sharing system to enlarge the energy efficiency for individual QoS and energy constraints. The author also examined the BS configuration, which includes homogeneous and heterogeneous UEs. While simulating, they discussed that the total number of transmit antennas plays a vital role in boosting energy efficiency. They highlighted that the highest energy efficiency was obtained when the BS was set up with 100 antennas that serve 20 UEs.

This section includes various works done on 5G MIMO technology by different author’s. Table 5 shows how different author’s worked on improvement of various parameters such as throughput, latency, energy efficiency, and spectral efficiency with 5G MIMO technology.

Summary of massive MIMO-based approaches in 5G technology.

4.2. 5G Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA)

NOMA is a very important radio access technology used in next generation wireless communication. Compared to previous orthogonal multiple access techniques, NOMA offers lots of benefits like high spectrum efficiency, low latency with high reliability and high speed massive connectivity. NOMA mainly works on a baseline to serve multiple users with the same resources in terms of time, space and frequency. NOMA is mainly divided into two main categories one is code domain NOMA and another is power domain NOMA. Code-domain NOMA can improve the spectral efficiency of mMIMO, which improves the connectivity in 5G wireless communication. Code-domain NOMA was divided into some more multiple access techniques like sparse code multiple access, lattice-partition multiple access, multi-user shared access and pattern-division multiple access [ 52 ]. Power-domain NOMA is widely used in 5G wireless networks as it performs well with various wireless communication techniques such as MIMO, beamforming, space-time coding, network coding, full-duplex and cooperative communication etc. [ 53 ]. The conventional orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) used by 3GPP in 4G LTE network provides very low spectral efficiency when bandwidth resources are allocated to users with low channel state information (CSI). NOMA resolved this issue as it enables users to access all the subcarrier channels so bandwidth resources allocated to the users with low CSI can still be accessed by the users with strong CSI which increases the spectral efficiency. The 5G network will support heterogeneous architecture in which small cell and macro base stations work for spectrum sharing. NOMA is a key technology of the 5G wireless system which is very helpful for heterogeneous networks as multiple users can share their data in a small cell using the NOMA principle.The NOMA is helpful in various applications like ultra-dense networks (UDN), machine to machine (M2M) communication and massive machine type communication (mMTC). As NOMA provides lots of features it has some challenges too such as NOMA needs huge computational power for a large number of users at high data rates to run the SIC algorithms. Second, when users are moving from the networks, to manage power allocation optimization is a challenging task for NOMA [ 54 ]. Hybrid NOMA (HNOMA) is a combination of power-domain and code-domain NOMA. HNOMA uses both power differences and orthogonal resources for transmission among multiple users. As HNOMA is using both power-domain NOMA and code-domain NOMA it can achieve higher spectral efficiency than Power-domain NOMA and code-domain NOMA. In HNOMA multiple groups can simultaneously transmit signals at the same time. It uses a message passing algorithm (MPA) and successive interference cancellation (SIC)-based detection at the base station for these groups [ 55 ].

Highlights of 5G NOMA technology as follows:

Pictorial representation of orthogonal and Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA).

• NOMA provides higher data rates and resolves all the loop holes of OMA that makes 5G mobile network more scalable and reliable.
• As multiple users use same frequency band simultaneously it increases the performance of whole network.
• To setup intracell and intercell interference NOMA provides nonorthogonal transmission on the transmitter end.
• The primary fundamental of NOMA is to improve the spectrum efficiency by strengthening the ramification of receiver.

State-of-the-Art of Approaches

A plenty of approaches were developed to address the various issues in NOMA.

A novel approach to address the multiple receiving signals at the same frequency is proposed in [ 22 ]. In NOMA, multiple users use the same sub-carrier, which improves the fairness and throughput of the system. As a nonorthogonal method is used among multiple users, at the time of retrieving the user’s signal at the receiver’s end, joint processing is required. They proposed solutions to optimize the receiver and the radio resource allocation of uplink NOMA. Firstly, the authors proposed an iterative MUDD which utilizes the information produced by the channel decoder to improve the performance of the multiuser detector. After that, the author suggested a power allocation and novel subcarrier that enhances the users’ weighted sum rate for the NOMA scheme. Their proposed model showed that NOMA performed well as compared to OFDM in terms of fairness and efficiency.

In [ 53 ], the author’s reviewed a power-domain NOMA that uses superposition coding (SC) and successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the transmitter and the receiver end. Lots of analyses were held that described that NOMA effectively satisfies user data rate demands and network-level of 5G technologies. The paper presented a complete review of recent advances in the 5G NOMA system. It showed the comparative analysis regarding allocation procedures, user fairness, state-of-the-art efficiency evaluation, user pairing pattern, etc. The study also analyzes NOMA’s behavior when working with other wireless communication techniques, namely, beamforming, MIMO, cooperative connections, network, space-time coding, etc.

In [ 9 ], the authors proposed NOMA with MEC, which improves the QoS as well as reduces the latency of the 5G wireless network. This model increases the uplink NOMA by decreasing the user’s uplink energy consumption. They formulated an optimized NOMA framework that reduces the energy consumption of MEC by using computing and communication resource allocation, user clustering, and transmit powers.

In [ 10 ], the authors proposed a model which investigates outage probability under average channel state information CSI and data rate in full CSI to resolve the problem of optimal power allocation, which increase the NOMA downlink system among users. They developed simple low-complexity algorithms to provide the optimal solution. The obtained simulation results showed NOMA’s efficiency, achieving higher performance fairness compared to the TDMA configurations. It was observed from the results that NOMA, through the appropriate power amplifiers (PA), ensures the high-performance fairness requirement for the future 5G wireless communication networks.

In [ 56 ], researchers discussed that the NOMA technology and waveform modulation techniques had been used in the 5G mobile network. Therefore, this research gave a detailed survey of non-orthogonal waveform modulation techniques and NOMA schemes for next-generation mobile networks. By analyzing and comparing multiple access technologies, they considered the future evolution of these technologies for 5G mobile communication.

In [ 57 ], the authors surveyed non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) from the development phase to the recent developments. They have also compared NOMA techniques with traditional OMA techniques concerning information theory. The author discussed the NOMA schemes categorically as power and code domain, including the design principles, operating principles, and features. Comparison is based upon the system’s performance, spectral efficiency, and the receiver’s complexity. Also discussed are the future challenges, open issues, and their expectations of NOMA and how it will support the key requirements of 5G mobile communication systems with massive connectivity and low latency.

In [ 17 ], authors present the first review of an elementary NOMA model with two users, which clarify its central precepts. After that, a general design with multicarrier supports with a random number of users on each sub-carrier is analyzed. In performance evaluation with the existing approaches, resource sharing and multiple-input multiple-output NOMA are examined. Furthermore, they took the key elements of NOMA and its potential research demands. Finally, they reviewed the two-user SC-NOMA design and a multi-user MC-NOMA design to highlight NOMA’s basic approaches and conventions. They also present the research study about the performance examination, resource assignment, and MIMO in NOMA.

In this section, various works by different authors done on 5G NOMA technology is covered. Table 6 shows how other authors worked on the improvement of various parameters such as spectral efficiency, fairness, and computing capacity with 5G NOMA technology.

Summary of NOMA-based approaches in 5G technology.

4.3. 5G Millimeter Wave (mmWave)

Millimeter wave is an extremely high frequency band, which is very useful for 5G wireless networks. MmWave uses 30 GHz to 300 GHz spectrum band for transmission. The frequency band between 30 GHz to 300 GHz is known as mmWave because these waves have wavelengths between 1 to 10 mm. Till now radar systems and satellites are only using mmWave as these are very fast frequency bands which provide very high speed wireless communication. Many mobile network providers also started mmWave for transmitting data between base stations. Using two ways the speed of data transmission can be improved one is by increasing spectrum utilization and second is by increasing spectrum bandwidth. Out of these two approaches increasing bandwidth is quite easy and better. The frequency band below 5 GHz is very crowded as many technologies are using it so to boost up the data transmission rate 5G wireless network uses mmWave technology which instead of increasing spectrum utilization, increases the spectrum bandwidth [ 58 ]. To maximize the signal bandwidth in wireless communication the carrier frequency should also be increased by 5% because the signal bandwidth is directly proportional to carrier frequencies. The frequency band between 28 GHz to 60 GHz is very useful for 5G wireless communication as 28 GHz frequency band offers up to 1 GHz spectrum bandwidth and 60 GHz frequency band offers 2 GHz spectrum bandwidth. 4G LTE provides 2 GHz carrier frequency which offers only 100 MHz spectrum bandwidth. However, the use of mmWave increases the spectrum bandwidth 10 times, which leads to better transmission speeds [ 59 , 60 ].

Highlights of 5G mmWave are as follows:

Pictorial representation of millimeter wave.

• The 5G mmWave offer three advantages: (1) MmWave is very less used new Band, (2) MmWave signals carry more data than lower frequency wave, and (3) MmWave can be incorporated with MIMO antenna with the potential to offer a higher magnitude capacity compared to current communication systems.

In [ 11 ], the authors presented the survey of mmWave communications for 5G. The advantage of mmWave communications is adaptability, i.e., it supports the architectures and protocols up-gradation, which consists of integrated circuits, systems, etc. The authors over-viewed the present solutions and examined them concerning effectiveness, performance, and complexity. They also discussed the open research issues of mmWave communications in 5G concerning the software-defined network (SDN) architecture, network state information, efficient regulation techniques, and the heterogeneous system.

In [ 61 ], the authors present the recent work done by investigators in 5G; they discussed the design issues and demands of mmWave 5G antennas for cellular handsets. After that, they designed a small size and low-profile 60 GHz array of antenna units that contain 3D planer mesh-grid antenna elements. For the future prospect, a framework is designed in which antenna components are used to operate cellular handsets on mmWave 5G smartphones. In addition, they cross-checked the mesh-grid array of antennas with the polarized beam for upcoming hardware challenges.

In [ 12 ], the authors considered the suitability of the mmWave band for 5G cellular systems. They suggested a resource allocation system for concurrent D2D communications in mmWave 5G cellular systems, and it improves network efficiency and maintains network connectivity. This research article can serve as guidance for simulating D2D communications in mmWave 5G cellular systems. Massive mmWave BS may be set up to obtain a high delivery rate and aggregate efficiency. Therefore, many wireless users can hand off frequently between the mmWave base terminals, and it emerges the demand to search the neighbor having better network connectivity.

In [ 62 ], the authors provided a brief description of the cellular spectrum which ranges from 1 GHz to 3 GHz and is very crowed. In addition, they presented various noteworthy factors to set up mmWave communications in 5G, namely, channel characteristics regarding mmWave signal attenuation due to free space propagation, atmospheric gaseous, and rain. In addition, hybrid beamforming architecture in the mmWave technique is analyzed. They also suggested methods for the blockage effect in mmWave communications due to penetration damage. Finally, the authors have studied designing the mmWave transmission with small beams in nonorthogonal device-to-device communication.

This section covered various works done on 5G mmWave technology. The Table 7 shows how different author’s worked on the improvement of various parameters i.e., transmission rate, coverage, and cost, with 5G mmWave technology.

Summary of existing mmWave-based approaches in 5G technology.

4.4. 5G IoT Based Approaches

The 5G mobile network plays a big role in developing the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT will connect lots of things with the internet like appliances, sensors, devices, objects, and applications. These applications will collect lots of data from different devices and sensors. 5G will provide very high speed internet connectivity for data collection, transmission, control, and processing. 5G is a flexible network with unused spectrum availability and it offers very low cost deployment that is why it is the most efficient technology for IoT [ 63 ]. In many areas, 5G provides benefits to IoT, and below are some examples:

Smart homes: smart home appliances and products are in demand these days. The 5G network makes smart homes more real as it offers high speed connectivity and monitoring of smart appliances. Smart home appliances are easily accessed and configured from remote locations using the 5G network, as it offers very high speed low latency communication.

Smart cities: 5G wireless network also helps in developing smart cities applications such as automatic traffic management, weather update, local area broadcasting, energy saving, efficient power supply, smart lighting system, water resource management, crowd management, emergency control, etc.

Industrial IoT: 5G wireless technology will provide lots of features for future industries such as safety, process tracking, smart packing, shipping, energy efficiency, automation of equipment, predictive maintenance and logistics. 5G smart sensor technology also offers smarter, safer, cost effective, and energy-saving industrial operation for industrial IoT.

Smart Farming: 5G technology will play a crucial role for agriculture and smart farming. 5G sensors and GPS technology will help farmers to track live attacks on crops and manage them quickly. These smart sensors can also be used for irrigation control, pest control, insect control, and electricity control.

Autonomous Driving: 5G wireless network offers very low latency high speed communication which is very significant for autonomous driving. It means self-driving cars will come to real life soon with 5G wireless networks. Using 5G autonomous cars can easily communicate with smart traffic signs, objects and other vehicles running on the road. 5G’s low latency feature makes self-driving more real as every millisecond is important for autonomous vehicles, decision taking is performed in microseconds to avoid accidents [ 64 ].

Highlights of 5G IoT are as follows:

Pictorial representation of IoT with 5G.

• 5G with IoT is a new feature of next-generation mobile communication, which provides a high-speed internet connection between moderated devices. 5G IoT also offers smart homes, smart devices, sensors, smart transportation systems, smart industries, etc., for end-users to make them smarter.
• IoT deals with moderate devices which connect through the internet. The approach of the IoT has made the consideration of the research associated with the outcome of providing wearable, smart-phones, sensors, smart transportation systems, smart devices, washing machines, tablets, etc., and these diverse systems are associated to a common interface with the intelligence to connect.
• Significant IoT applications include private healthcare systems, traffic management, industrial management, and tactile internet, etc.

Plenty of approaches is devised to address the issues of IoT [ 14 , 65 , 66 ].

In [ 65 ], the paper focuses on 5G mobile systems due to the emerging trends and developing technologies, which results in the exponential traffic growth in IoT. The author surveyed the challenges and demands during deployment of the massive IoT applications with the main focus on mobile networking. The author reviewed the features of standard IoT infrastructure, along with the cellular-based, low-power wide-area technologies (LPWA) such as eMTC, extended coverage (EC)-GSM-IoT, as well as noncellular, low-power wide-area (LPWA) technologies such as SigFox, LoRa etc.

In [ 14 ], the authors presented how 5G technology copes with the various issues of IoT today. It provides a brief review of existing and forming 5G architectures. The survey indicates the role of 5G in the foundation of the IoT ecosystem. IoT and 5G can easily combine with improved wireless technologies to set up the same ecosystem that can fulfill the current requirement for IoT devices. 5G can alter nature and will help to expand the development of IoT devices. As the process of 5G unfolds, global associations will find essentials for setting up a cross-industry engagement in determining and enlarging the 5G system.

In [ 66 ], the author introduced an IoT authentication scheme in a 5G network, with more excellent reliability and dynamic. The scheme proposed a privacy-protected procedure for selecting slices; it provided an additional fog node for proper data transmission and service types of the subscribers, along with service-oriented authentication and key understanding to maintain the secrecy, precision of users, and confidentiality of service factors. Users anonymously identify the IoT servers and develop a vital channel for service accessibility and data cached on local fog nodes and remote IoT servers. The author performed a simulation to manifest the security and privacy preservation of the user over the network.

This section covered various works done on 5G IoT by multiple authors. Table 8 shows how different author’s worked on the improvement of numerous parameters, i.e., data rate, security requirement, and performance with 5G IoT.

Summary of IoT-based approaches in 5G technology.

4.5. Machine Learning Techniques for 5G

Various machine learning (ML) techniques were applied in 5G networks and mobile communication. It provides a solution to multiple complex problems, which requires a lot of hand-tuning. ML techniques can be broadly classified as supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Let’s discuss each learning technique separately and where it impacts the 5G network.

Supervised Learning, where user works with labeled data; some 5G network problems can be further categorized as classification and regression problems. Some regression problems such as scheduling nodes in 5G and energy availability can be predicted using Linear Regression (LR) algorithm. To accurately predict the bandwidth and frequency allocation Statistical Logistic Regression (SLR) is applied. Some supervised classifiers are applied to predict the network demand and allocate network resources based on the connectivity performance; it signifies the topology setup and bit rates. Support Vector Machine (SVM) and NN-based approximation algorithms are used for channel learning based on observable channel state information. Deep Neural Network (DNN) is also employed to extract solutions for predicting beamforming vectors at the BS’s by taking mapping functions and uplink pilot signals into considerations.

In unsupervised Learning, where the user works with unlabeled data, various clustering techniques are applied to enhance network performance and connectivity without interruptions. K-means clustering reduces the data travel by storing data centers content into clusters. It optimizes the handover estimation based on mobility pattern and selection of relay nodes in the V2V network. Hierarchical clustering reduces network failure by detecting the intrusion in the mobile wireless network; unsupervised soft clustering helps in reducing latency by clustering fog nodes. The nonparametric Bayesian unsupervised learning technique reduces traffic in the network by actively serving the user’s requests and demands. Other unsupervised learning techniques such as Adversarial Auto Encoders (AAE) and Affinity Propagation Clustering techniques detect irregular behavior in the wireless spectrum and manage resources for ultradense small cells, respectively.

In case of an uncertain environment in the 5G wireless network, reinforcement learning (RL) techniques are employed to solve some problems. Actor-critic reinforcement learning is used for user scheduling and resource allocation in the network. Markov decision process (MDP) and Partially Observable MDP (POMDP) is used for Quality of Experience (QoE)-based handover decision-making for Hetnets. Controls packet call admission in HetNets and channel access process for secondary users in a Cognitive Radio Network (CRN). Deep RL is applied to decide the communication channel and mobility and speeds up the secondary user’s learning rate using an antijamming strategy. Deep RL is employed in various 5G network application parameters such as resource allocation and security [ 67 ]. Table 9 shows the state-of-the-art ML-based solution for 5G network.

The state-of-the-art ML-based solution for 5G network.

Highlights of machine learning techniques for 5G are as follows:

Pictorial representation of machine learning (ML) in 5G.

• In ML, a model will be defined which fulfills the desired requirements through which desired results are obtained. In the later stage, it examines accuracy from obtained results.
• ML plays a vital role in 5G network analysis for threat detection, network load prediction, final arrangement, and network formation. Searching for a better balance between power, length of antennas, area, and network thickness crossed with the spontaneous use of services in the universe of individual users and types of devices.

In [ 79 ], author’s firstly describes the demands for the traditional authentication procedures and benefits of intelligent authentication. The intelligent authentication method was established to improve security practice in 5G-and-beyond wireless communication systems. Thereafter, the machine learning paradigms for intelligent authentication were organized into parametric and non-parametric research methods, as well as supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning approaches. As a outcome, machine learning techniques provide a new paradigm into authentication under diverse network conditions and unstable dynamics. In addition, prompt intelligence to the security management to obtain cost-effective, better reliable, model-free, continuous, and situation-aware authentication.

In [ 68 ], the authors proposed a machine learning-based model to predict the traffic load at a particular location. They used a mobile network traffic dataset to train a model that can calculate the total number of user requests at a time. To launch access and mobility management function (AMF) instances according to the requirement as there were no predictions of user request the performance automatically degrade as AMF does not handle these requests at a time. Earlier threshold-based techniques were used to predict the traffic load, but that approach took too much time; therefore, the authors proposed RNN algorithm-based ML to predict the traffic load, which gives efficient results.

In [ 15 ], authors discussed the issue of network slice admission, resource allocation among subscribers, and how to maximize the profit of infrastructure providers. The author proposed a network slice admission control algorithm based on SMDP (decision-making process) that guarantees the subscribers’ best acceptance policies and satisfiability (tenants). They also suggested novel N3AC, a neural network-based algorithm that optimizes performance under various configurations, significantly outperforms practical and straightforward approaches.

This section includes various works done on 5G ML by different authors. Table 10 shows the state-of-the-art work on the improvement of various parameters such as energy efficiency, Quality of Services (QoS), and latency with 5G ML.

The state-of-the-art ML-based approaches in 5G technology.

4.6. Optimization Techniques for 5G

Optimization techniques may be applied to capture NP-Complete or NP-Hard problems in 5G technology. This section briefly describes various research works suggested for 5G technology based on optimization techniques.

In [ 80 ], Massive MIMO technology is used in 5G mobile network to make it more flexible and scalable. The MIMO implementation in 5G needs a significant number of radio frequencies is required in the RF circuit that increases the cost and energy consumption of the 5G network. This paper provides a solution that increases the cost efficiency and energy efficiency with many radio frequency chains for a 5G wireless communication network. They give an optimized energy efficient technique for MIMO antenna and mmWave technologies based 5G mobile communication network. The proposed Energy Efficient Hybrid Precoding (EEHP) algorithm to increase the energy efficiency for the 5G wireless network. This algorithm minimizes the cost of an RF circuit with a large number of RF chains.

In [ 16 ], authors have discussed the growing demand for energy efficiency in the next-generation networks. In the last decade, they have figured out the things in wireless transmissions, which proved a change towards pursuing green communication for the next generation system. The importance of adopting the correct EE metric was also reviewed. Further, they worked through the different approaches that can be applied in the future for increasing the network’s energy and posed a summary of the work that was completed previously to enhance the energy productivity of the network using these capabilities. A system design for EE development using relay selection was also characterized, along with an observation of distinct algorithms applied for EE in relay-based ecosystems.

In [ 81 ], authors presented how AI-based approach is used to the setup of Self Organizing Network (SON) functionalities for radio access network (RAN) design and optimization. They used a machine learning approach to predict the results for 5G SON functionalities. Firstly, the input was taken from various sources; then, prediction and clustering-based machine learning models were applied to produce the results. Multiple AI-based devices were used to extract the knowledge analysis to execute SON functionalities smoothly. Based on results, they tested how self-optimization, self-testing, and self-designing are done for SON. The author also describes how the proposed mechanism classifies in different orders.

In [ 82 ], investigators examined the working of OFDM in various channel environments. They also figured out the changes in frame duration of the 5G TDD frame design. Subcarrier spacing is beneficial to obtain a small frame length with control overhead. They provided various techniques to reduce the growing guard period (GP) and cyclic prefix (CP) like complete utilization of multiple subcarrier spacing, management and data parts of frame at receiver end, various uses of timing advance (TA) or total control of flexible CP size.

This section includes various works that were done on 5G optimization by different authors. Table 11 shows how other authors worked on the improvement of multiple parameters such as energy efficiency, power optimization, and latency with 5G optimization.

Summary of Optimization Based Approaches in 5G Technology.

5. Description of Novel 5G Features over 4G

This section presents descriptions of various novel features of 5G, namely, the concept of small cell, beamforming, and MEC.

5.1. Small Cell

Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes which work in the range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. Small cells play a very important role in implementation of the 5G wireless network. Small cells are low power base stations which cover small areas. Small cells are quite similar with all the previous cells used in various wireless networks. However, these cells have some advantages like they can work with low power and they are also capable of working with high data rates. Small cells help in rollout of 5G network with ultra high speed and low latency communication. Small cells in the 5G network use some new technologies like MIMO, beamforming, and mmWave for high speed data transmission. The design of small cells hardware is very simple so its implementation is quite easier and faster. There are three types of small cell tower available in the market. Femtocells, picocells, and microcells [ 83 ]. As shown in the Table 12 .

Types of Small cells.

MmWave is a very high band spectrum between 30 to 300 GHz. As it is a significantly less used spectrum, it provides very high-speed wireless communication. MmWave offers ultra-wide bandwidth for next-generation mobile networks. MmWave has lots of advantages, but it has some disadvantages, too, such as mmWave signals are very high-frequency signals, so they have more collision with obstacles in the air which cause the signals loses energy quickly. Buildings and trees also block MmWave signals, so these signals cover a shorter distance. To resolve these issues, multiple small cell stations are installed to cover the gap between end-user and base station [ 18 ]. Small cell covers a very shorter range, so the installation of a small cell depends on the population of a particular area. Generally, in a populated place, the distance between each small cell varies from 10 to 90 meters. In the survey [ 20 ], various authors implemented small cells with massive MIMO simultaneously. They also reviewed multiple technologies used in 5G like beamforming, small cell, massive MIMO, NOMA, device to device (D2D) communication. Various problems like interference management, spectral efficiency, resource management, energy efficiency, and backhauling are discussed. The author also gave a detailed presentation of all the issues occurring while implementing small cells with various 5G technologies. As shown in the Figure 7 , mmWave has a higher range, so it can be easily blocked by the obstacles as shown in Figure 7 a. This is one of the key concerns of millimeter-wave signal transmission. To solve this issue, the small cell can be placed at a short distance to transmit the signals easily, as shown in Figure 7 b.

Pictorial representation of communication with and without small cells.

5.2. Beamforming

Beamforming is a key technology of wireless networks which transmits the signals in a directional manner. 5G beamforming making a strong wireless connection toward a receiving end. In conventional systems when small cells are not using beamforming, moving signals to particular areas is quite difficult. Beamforming counter this issue using beamforming small cells are able to transmit the signals in particular direction towards a device like mobile phone, laptops, autonomous vehicle and IoT devices. Beamforming is improving the efficiency and saves the energy of the 5G network. Beamforming is broadly divided into three categories: Digital beamforming, analog beamforming and hybrid beamforming. Digital beamforming: multiuser MIMO is equal to digital beamforming which is mainly used in LTE Advanced Pro and in 5G NR. In digital beamforming the same frequency or time resources can be used to transmit the data to multiple users at the same time which improves the cell capacity of wireless networks. Analog Beamforming: In mmWave frequency range 5G NR analog beamforming is a very important approach which improves the coverage. In digital beamforming there are chances of high pathloss in mmWave as only one beam per set of antenna is formed. While the analog beamforming saves high pathloss in mmWave. Hybrid beamforming: hybrid beamforming is a combination of both analog beamforming and digital beamforming. In the implementation of MmWave in 5G network hybrid beamforming will be used [ 84 ].

Wireless signals in the 4G network are spreading in large areas, and nature is not Omnidirectional. Thus, energy depletes rapidly, and users who are accessing these signals also face interference problems. The beamforming technique is used in the 5G network to resolve this issue. In beamforming signals are directional. They move like a laser beam from the base station to the user, so signals seem to be traveling in an invisible cable. Beamforming helps achieve a faster data rate; as the signals are directional, it leads to less energy consumption and less interference. In [ 21 ], investigators evolve some techniques which reduce interference and increase system efficiency of the 5G mobile network. In this survey article, the authors covered various challenges faced while designing an optimized beamforming algorithm. Mainly focused on different design parameters such as performance evaluation and power consumption. In addition, they also described various issues related to beamforming like CSI, computation complexity, and antenna correlation. They also covered various research to cover how beamforming helps implement MIMO in next-generation mobile networks [ 85 ]. Figure 8 shows the pictorial representation of communication with and without using beamforming.

Pictorial Representation of communication with and without using beamforming.

5.3. Mobile Edge Computing

Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) [ 24 ]: MEC is an extended version of cloud computing that brings cloud resources closer to the end-user. When we talk about computing, the very first thing that comes to our mind is cloud computing. Cloud computing is a very famous technology that offers many services to end-user. Still, cloud computing has many drawbacks. The services available in the cloud are too far from end-users that create latency, and cloud user needs to download the complete application before use, which also increases the burden to the device [ 86 ]. MEC creates an edge between the end-user and cloud server, bringing cloud computing closer to the end-user. Now, all the services, namely, video conferencing, virtual software, etc., are offered by this edge that improves cloud computing performance. Another essential feature of MEC is that the application is split into two parts, which, first one is available at cloud server, and the second is at the user’s device. Therefore, the user need not download the complete application on his device that increases the performance of the end user’s device. Furthermore, MEC provides cloud services at very low latency and less bandwidth. In [ 23 , 87 ], the author’s investigation proved that successful deployment of MEC in 5G network increases the overall performance of 5G architecture. Graphical differentiation between cloud computing and mobile edge computing is presented in Figure 9 .

Pictorial representation of cloud computing vs. mobile edge computing.

6. 5G Security

Security is the key feature in the telecommunication network industry, which is necessary at various layers, to handle 5G network security in applications such as IoT, Digital forensics, IDS and many more [ 88 , 89 ]. The authors [ 90 ], discussed the background of 5G and its security concerns, challenges and future directions. The author also introduced the blockchain technology that can be incorporated with the IoT to overcome the challenges in IoT. The paper aims to create a security framework which can be incorporated with the LTE advanced network, and effective in terms of cost, deployment and QoS. In [ 91 ], author surveyed various form of attacks, the security challenges, security solutions with respect to the affected technology such as SDN, Network function virtualization (NFV), Mobile Clouds and MEC, and security standardizations of 5G, i.e., 3GPP, 5GPPP, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In [ 92 ], author elaborated various technological aspects, security issues and their existing solutions and also mentioned the new emerging technological paradigms for 5G security such as blockchain, quantum cryptography, AI, SDN, CPS, MEC, D2D. The author aims to create new security frameworks for 5G for further use of this technology in development of smart cities, transportation and healthcare. In [ 93 ], author analyzed the threats and dark threat, security aspects concerned with SDN and NFV, also their Commercial & Industrial Security Corporation (CISCO) 5G vision and new security innovations with respect to the new evolving architectures of 5G [ 94 ].

AuthenticationThe identification of the user in any network is made with the help of authentication. The different mobile network generations from 1G to 5G have used multiple techniques for user authentication. 5G utilizes the 5G Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA) authentication method, which shares a cryptographic key between user equipment (UE) and its home network and establishes a mutual authentication process between the both [ 95 ].

Access Control To restrict the accessibility in the network, 5G supports access control mechanisms to provide a secure and safe environment to the users and is controlled by network providers. 5G uses simple public key infrastructure (PKI) certificates for authenticating access in the 5G network. PKI put forward a secure and dynamic environment for the 5G network. The simple PKI technique provides flexibility to the 5G network; it can scale up and scale down as per the user traffic in the network [ 96 , 97 ].

Communication Security 5G deals to provide high data bandwidth, low latency, and better signal coverage. Therefore secure communication is the key concern in the 5G network. UE, mobile operators, core network, and access networks are the main focal point for the attackers in 5G communication. Some of the common attacks in communication at various segments are Botnet, message insertion, micro-cell, distributed denial of service (DDoS), and transport layer security (TLS)/secure sockets layer (SSL) attacks [ 98 , 99 ].

Encryption The confidentiality of the user and the network is done using encryption techniques. As 5G offers multiple services, end-to-end (E2E) encryption is the most suitable technique applied over various segments in the 5G network. Encryption forbids unauthorized access to the network and maintains the data privacy of the user. To encrypt the radio traffic at Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP) layer, three 128-bits keys are applied at the user plane, nonaccess stratum (NAS), and access stratum (AS) [ 100 ].

7. Summary of 5G Technology Based on Above-Stated Challenges

In this section, various issues addressed by investigators in 5G technologies are presented in Table 13 . In addition, different parameters are considered, such as throughput, latency, energy efficiency, data rate, spectral efficiency, fairness & computing capacity, transmission rate, coverage, cost, security requirement, performance, QoS, power optimization, etc., indexed from R1 to R14.

Summary of 5G Technology above stated challenges (R1:Throughput, R2:Latency, R3:Energy Efficiency, R4:Data Rate, R5:Spectral efficiency, R6:Fairness & Computing Capacity, R7:Transmission Rate, R8:Coverage, R9:Cost, R10:Security requirement, R11:Performance, R12:Quality of Services (QoS), R13:Power Optimization).

8. Conclusions

This survey article illustrates the emergence of 5G, its evolution from 1G to 5G mobile network, applications, different research groups, their work, and the key features of 5G. It is not just a mobile broadband network, different from all the previous mobile network generations; it offers services like IoT, V2X, and Industry 4.0. This paper covers a detailed survey from multiple authors on different technologies in 5G, such as massive MIMO, Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA), millimeter wave, small cell, MEC (Mobile Edge Computing), beamforming, optimization, and machine learning in 5G. After each section, a tabular comparison covers all the state-of-the-research held in these technologies. This survey also shows the importance of these newly added technologies and building a flexible, scalable, and reliable 5G network.

9. Future Findings

This article covers a detailed survey on the 5G mobile network and its features. These features make 5G more reliable, scalable, efficient at affordable rates. As discussed in the above sections, numerous technical challenges originate while implementing those features or providing services over a 5G mobile network. So, for future research directions, the research community can overcome these challenges while implementing these technologies (MIMO, NOMA, small cell, mmWave, beam-forming, MEC) over a 5G network. 5G communication will bring new improvements over the existing systems. Still, the current solutions cannot fulfill the autonomous system and future intelligence engineering requirements after a decade. There is no matter of discussion that 5G will provide better QoS and new features than 4G. But there is always room for improvement as the considerable growth of centralized data and autonomous industry 5G wireless networks will not be capable of fulfilling their demands in the future. So, we need to move on new wireless network technology that is named 6G. 6G wireless network will bring new heights in mobile generations, as it includes (i) massive human-to-machine communication, (ii) ubiquitous connectivity between the local device and cloud server, (iii) creation of data fusion technology for various mixed reality experiences and multiverps maps. (iv) Focus on sensing and actuation to control the network of the entire world. The 6G mobile network will offer new services with some other technologies; these services are 3D mapping, reality devices, smart homes, smart wearable, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, and sense. It is expected that 6G will provide ultra-long-range communication with a very low latency of 1 ms. The per-user bit rate in a 6G wireless network will be approximately 1 Tbps, and it will also provide wireless communication, which is 1000 times faster than 5G networks.

Acknowledgments

Author contributions.

Conceptualization: R.D., I.Y., G.C., P.L. data gathering: R.D., G.C., P.L, I.Y. funding acquisition: I.Y. investigation: I.Y., G.C., G.P. methodology: R.D., I.Y., G.C., P.L., G.P., survey: I.Y., G.C., P.L, G.P., R.D. supervision: G.C., I.Y., G.P. validation: I.Y., G.P. visualization: R.D., I.Y., G.C., P.L. writing, original draft: R.D., I.Y., G.C., P.L., G.P. writing, review, and editing: I.Y., G.C., G.P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This paper was supported by Soonchunhyang University.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The Past, Present, and Future of Human Communication and Technology Research: An Introduction

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Scott C. D’Urso, The Past, Present, and Future of Human Communication and Technology Research: An Introduction, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , Volume 14, Issue 3, 1 April 2009, Pages 708–713, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01459.x

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The study of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and new communication technologies (NCTs) is an established and growing field not only with respect to the new technologies becoming available, but also in the many ways we are adopting them for use. Historically, I have contended that this area of communication research deserves recognition as a primary area of communication studies alongside that of interpersonal, organizational, health, and rhetorical studies among others. While the CMC area is still in its infancy, its impact on a variety of areas of human existence cannot be ignored. That said, when I began to work on this special section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication ( JCMC ), it led me to more systematically consider the question of its place within the larger discipline of communication. This line of research has been gathering strength for more than 25 years and is now a strong and healthy subdiscipline in communication. This special section of JCMC seeks to tie together its rich past, diverse present, and an exciting future of possibilities and challenges. This takes place through a series of essays by some of the key contributors in the field today.

Most of the established areas of research in communication are centered on a solid base of theories. The CMC field is no different. From the work on social presence ( Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976 ), information (media) richness ( Daft & Lengel, 1984 , 1986 ), critical mass ( Markus, 1987 ), social influence ( Fulk, Schmitz, & Steinfeld, 1990 ), social information processing (SIP) ( Walther, 1992 ), social identity and deindividuation (SIDE) ( Spears & Lea, 1992 ), adaptive structuration ( DeSanctis & Poole, 1994 ), hyperpersonal interaction ( Walther, 1996 ), and channel expansion ( Carlson & Zmud, 1999 ) to the mindfulness/mindlessness work of Timmerman (2002) , theory development is central to CMC research. While it can be argued that some CMC theories are not exclusive to the study of CMC, the same can be said of some of the core theories of other primary areas such as interpersonal and organizational communication. What is more important is that scholars in this field of research are using these theories as the basis for research today.

CMC research continues to find its way into many top journals today (see, for example, Gong & Nass, 2007 ; Katz, 2007 ; Ramirez & Wang, 2008 ; Stephens, 2007 ) within our discipline, as well as in sociology, social psychology, and business management (see, for example, D’Urso & Rains, 2008 ; Katz, Rice, & Aspen, 2001 ; Walther, Loh, & Granka, 2005 ). Key contributions to this field date back over 25 years (see, for example, Barnes & Greller, 1992; Baym, 1995; Chesebro, 1985 ; Hunter & Allen, 1992 ; Jones, 1995 ; Korzenny, 1978 ; Parks & Floyd, 1996 ; Reese, 1988 ; Rice, 1980 ; Rice, 1984 ; Sproull & Kiesler, 1986 ; Steinfield, 1992 ). This diversity of publication outlets and the longevity of this research line are but a few of the examples of the breath and depth of CMC research. One key trait of most established fields is the existence of a flagship journal that is the home for that genre of research. In the case of CMC research, JCMC is considered by many to fulfill that role. Published in an online format since 1995, JCMC is now an official publication of the International Communication Association (ICA). Beyond journal publications, it is rather difficult these days to peruse the bookshelves in communication research and not notice the plethora of volumes dedicated to the study of CMC. The importance of the Internet in today's society has undoubtedly played a role in this publication trend; however, many of the books are scholarly and present some of today's best research in this area.

As has been seen with the number of articles and books published on this topic, the numbers of scholars who study CMC are also increasing. Though a number of the key scholars in this field are housed in other areas such as organizational and interpersonal communication, their work routinely looks at how CMC impacts communication (see Contractor & Eisenberg, 1990 ; Fulk, Flanagin, Kalman, Monge, & Ryan, 1996 ; Rice, 1993 ). One key factor in determining if CMC research should be a distinct subset of communication research can be seen at annual conferences such as the National Communication Association (NCA) and ICA. Here, graduate students who are preparing to enter the job market are seeing more and more openings for faculty positions with CMC as a potential area of specialization. This trend does not appear to be going away anytime soon.

Both NCA and ICA have prominent divisions in their respective organizations concerned with understanding CMC. In ICA, the Communication and Technology Division is now the largest in the entire association. In NCA, the Human Communication and Technology Division has a sustained membership of over 500. Looking back at the past several NCA conference programs, one cannot help but notice the presence of this division through the sponsorship of numerous panels and papers. As the recent Cochair for this division, I felt it was time that we made our presence more prominent within NCA. In 2007, we invited a number of prominent scholars to participate in a unique double-length panel discussion. Each of the 10 panelists, featured in the special section, presented and discussed their thoughts on the past, present and future of research in CMC with the audience. The success of the panel, and the interest generated by the panel, led to this special section.

Having reconsidered my original thoughts on identifying CMC research as a primary area of communication research, I have come to the conclusion that it may have become a moot point. CMC scholars are uniquely positioned to study the vast impact that communication technologies have had and are having on our society. Looking back at the past volumes of JCMC , the diversity of topics covered includes: interpersonal, medical, psychological, organizational, political, behavioral, and management studies. This diversity of research across disciplines places the CMC field in a unique position to be at the heart of many disciplinary endeavors in communication. However, is it a distinct and separate field of communication research? Yes, but without its cross-disciplinary approach, its overall impact on communication research may be seen as implausible.

To highlight the varied aspects of CMC research, this special section presents the thoughts of some of the prominent scholars in today's field of CMC. Rice (this issue) begins with what is most likely unique common experience for many as we struggle with our day-to-day interactions with technology. The particular story that Rice relates to us focuses on the embeddedness of CMC in our lives today and the challenges we face in understanding them in a larger context. These experiences and our understanding of their importance to our research are of particular interest to Baym (this issue) who notes that our interactions with technology are seen as a welcome trend. However, we must remain cautious as to what and how we research CMC, both now and in the future. Parks (this issue) offers that a microlevel approach to studying CMC may be problematic as compared to a broader approach to the technologies and their usage over time. To illustrate this point, Jackson's (this issue) discussion of the blending of technologies and concepts through “mashups” drives home the need for a broader approach to how we not only use, but research CMC.

One of the fastest growing areas of CMC research, social networking, represents what Barnes (this issue) considers another aspect of the convergence of CMC and human interaction. This falls in line with Contractor's (this issue) call for understanding the motivations behind why we seek these networked connections through mediated means. The development of future theory and research in this area will have the potential for far reaching implications across the CMC discipline.

From a theory standpoint, Walther (this issue) wonders whether our fields' development suffers from efforts at theoretical consolidation, rather than diversification of explanations and their boundary conditions that are critical in CMC research. Scott (this issue) provides potential directions for research and theory development, but does so with caution, because as he explains, “we can't keep up” with the technological innovations, and it may not be in our best interest to do so. Poole (this issue) sees consolidation of our efforts as a potential route through a combined process of data collection and sharing similar to how other disciplines operate. However we choose to proceed, it is clear, as Fulk and Gould (this issue) note, that we face many challenges ahead, but that the potential to really enhance the field of CMC research lies in our ability to meet these challenges.

I hope you enjoy what we have assembled here in this special section. There are many areas of research, theory development, and new communication technologies for us to ponder now and in the future. We find ourselves in an exciting period in CMC research history and the future looks very promising.

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Scott C. D’Urso (Ph.D., 2004, University of Texas at Austin) is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Marquette University, where he teaches courses focused on organizational and corporate communication and new communication technology. Scott's primary research interests include organizational use of communication technologies such as e-mail, instant messaging and chat. He has published manuscripts on privacy and surveillance in the workplace, communication channel selection, crisis communication and stakeholder issues. He is currently working on several projects including digital divides in organizations, virtual team decision-making, and the role of online identity creation and privacy concerns with social networking websites. Prior to a career in academia, Scott worked for several years as a multimedia specialist/manager of a multimedia production department for a government defense contractor in the Southwest.

The author wishes to thank Yun Xia, and all of the officers of the Human Communication and Technology Division of NCA (past and present) as well as all of the authors who contributed to this special section, and finally, Aimee R. Hardinger, who served as editorial assistant for this special section.

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Probing the Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Enhancing Research: An Epilogue of Accessible Research Tools

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• M. Vinay   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0297-3597 12 &
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Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has revolutionized the way researchers conduct their work. It has enabled them to access a wealth of information through online databases, collaborate with colleagues across the globe, and analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately. This paper explores the role of ICT in enhancing research tools, highlighting the benefits it provides to researchers in terms of increased efficiency, improved accuracy, and greater access to resources. It also discusses some of the challenges associated with using ICT in research, such as data security and privacy concerns, and offers potential solutions. Overall, the paper concludes that ICT is an essential tool for researchers and will continue to play an increasingly important role in advancing scientific knowledge and innovation.

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Vinay, M., Jayapriya, J. (2023). Probing the Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Enhancing Research: An Epilogue of Accessible Research Tools. In: Tuba, M., Akashe, S., Joshi, A. (eds) ICT Infrastructure and Computing. ICT4SD 2023. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 754. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4932-8_47

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Enhancing the roles of information and communication technologies in doctoral research processes

• Sarah J. Stein   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0024-1675 1 &
• Kwong Nui Sim 2  

International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education volume  17 , Article number:  34 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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While information and communication technologies (ICT) are prominent in educational practices at most levels of formal learning, there is relatively little known about the skills and understandings that underlie their effective and efficient use in research higher degree settings. This project aimed to identify doctoral supervisors’ and students’ perceptions of their roles in using ICT. Data were gathered through participative drawing and individual discussion sessions. Participants included 11 students and two supervisors from two New Zealand universities. Focus of the thematic analysis was on the views expressed by students about their ideas, practices and beliefs, in relation to their drawings. The major finding was that individuals hold assumptions and expectations about ICT and their use; they make judgements and take action based on those expectations and assumptions. Knowing about ICT and knowing about research processes separately form only part of the work of doctoral study. Just as supervision cannot be considered independently of the research project and the student involved, ICT skills and the use of ICT cannot be considered in the absence of the people and the project. What is more important in terms of facilitating the doctoral research process is students getting their “flow” right. This indicates a need to provide explicit support to enable students to embed ICT within their own research processes.

Background/context

Information and communication technologies (ICT) can bring either joy or challenge to well-versed academic practices, and either create barriers to learning and development or be the answer to needs. While some grasp and pursue opportunities to make use of various ICT for study, research and teaching, others struggle. Despite documented and anecdotal positive urges to adopt ICT to increase and improve efficiency and effectiveness, staff and students struggle experience ICT as needless and difficult-to-use interruptions. There is often little need seen to change practices by introducing ICT into ways of working. Exploring these views and experiences was the focus of this project. Being empathetic to views such as those expressed by Castañeda and Selwyn ( 2018 ), we did not approach this investigation from a position that assumes that ICT are natural and needed solutions to problems related to improving and facilitating effective learning, teaching and research. Rather, we took a more neutral stance, wishing to explore the experiences of those involved, namely, students and staff, through discussion with them about their ICT practices and views, and with a specific focus on doctoral study and supervision.

Doctoral supervision and the role, place and nature of the doctorate are receiving increasing attention in higher education research literature. A wide range of topics have been covered from, for example, the importance and types of support for students throughout candidature (e.g., Zhou & Okahana, 2019 ); to the teaching and supervision aspects of doctoral supervision (e.g., Åkerlind & McAlpine, 2017 ; Cotterall, 2011 ; Lee, 2008 ).

With advancements in, accessibility to, and development of, ICT within education settings has come a plethora of research into online and blended learning. These studies often highlight the capacity of ICT for facilitating teaching, learning and administrative activity within educational institutions and systems (e.g., Marshall & Shepherd, 2016 ). They cover numerous areas of importance from theoretical, practical, and philosophical angles and include the perspectives and needs of learners, educators and institutions (e.g., Nichols, Anderson, Campbell, & Thompson, 2014 ).

There are also studies on student use of ICT, though not necessarily doctoral students, and these cover a wide range of topics including specific ICT skills (e.g., Stensaker, Maassen, Borgan, Oftebro, & Karseth, 2007 ). Where postgraduate research students are concerned, some studies on ICT skill development and support provide some insights about students (e.g., Dowling & Wilson, 2017 ), and institutional ICT systems (Aghaee et al., 2016 ).

Notable about the many of these studies cited above is the use of self-reporting tools as mechanisms for gathering data about student use and views about ICT. While self-reports are valuable ways to collect such data about self-efficacy, they do have limits. In online learning environments, the role of self-efficacy, for example, is still being contested. It has been argued that learners from a variety of disciplines and learning settings will tend to overestimate claims about their performance and/or knowledge and skills (e.g., Mahmood, 2016 ).

All these studies help to ‘map the territory’ of ICT, their use at individual and institutional levels and related practices. Much advice and guidance can be gleaned from the literature as well, although relatively little for the specific integration of ICT within the doctoral research and supervision environment. Based on the literature that is available though, all indications are that (doctoral) students adopt educational practices incorporating limited ICT use, even though the use of ICT has grown enormously in the last 10 to 20 years. With the current interest in ensuring success of students and completion of doctoral degrees being closely related to high quality supervision, there is a need to improve supervision practices and within that, advance understandings about how to support students in their use of ICT for their doctoral research.

This project

This project aimed to explore doctoral student and supervisor views and use of ICT within the doctoral process. The intention was to bring to light perceptions that could give clues as to how to make practical modifications to the content and scope of professional development support for supervisors and students, in order to help them to make best use of ICT. In addition, consideration was given to the way data would be collected to ensure that more than just the self-reported perspectives of the participants were included.

An interpretivist research approach (Erickson, 2012 ) framed this study to support a focus on understanding the world from the perspectives of those who live it. Thus, the approach was well-suited to exploring perceptions about the use of ICT in our context.

Thus, this study did not commence with any hypotheses related to the influence of ICT in doctoral research in mind. Instead, as the interpretive frame of the research implies, this study investigated ways in which participants expressed their experiences of engaging and integrating ICT in support of their doctoral research processes. The data tapped into the participants’ (PhD students and doctoral supervisors) perspectives, as they expressed them. The research approach thus defined and shaped all aspects of the data gathering, analyses and presentation. In this way, alignment was ensured among the ontological, epistemological and practical implementation of the research project.

The study took place in two New Zealand universities where participants were either employees or students. Both universities are research-intensive, with histories of producing high-level research across many disciplines. Both institutions have clear and well-formulated policies and practices governing doctoral study - PhD and professional doctorate - and these include supporting that study through supervision. A specialised unit in each institution manages the administration of the doctoral degree. Couching “supervision” as essentially a (specialised) teaching activity, each unit also provides or coordinates professional development for staff in the art of supervision, and for students in the skills and processes of undertaking doctoral degree study.

Participants

Participants included doctoral students and supervisors from the two universities. As a result of an invitation to all students and supervisors, in total, 11 students and two supervisors responded. The students were PhD students at varying levels of completion. There was a mix of part time and full-time students from a variety of discipline backgrounds including health sciences, sciences, commerce and humanities. The supervisors were experienced and were from humanities and sciences.

Data sources

Data were collected using a 3-tier participative drawing process (Wetton & McWhirter, 1998 ). This strategy involved a series of two or three interview/discussions, along with participant-made drawings, which formed the focus of the interview/discussions.

This strategy generated two sources of data - interview transcripts and participant drawings – and involved the following (3-tier) phases:

Initial semi-structured interview/discussion to ascertain information about participants’ backgrounds and other details they saw relevant to share. In addition, they were asked about their use of ICT generally as well as within the doctoral process. It was a chance for the researchers to gain some understanding of participants’ views and practices in relation to ICT and their doctoral/supervision journeys.

Participant drawing . The participants were asked to make a drawing in their own time and before the second interview/discussion. Guidelines for the drawing suggested that they think of a way to illustrate their research process first, then to add onto the drawing any ICT (such as devices, websites, programmes, applications) that they make use of in the process.

Follow-up interview/discussion . During this phase, each participant was asked to explain the drawing’s features and how it made sense in terms of the project he or she was undertaking. This included discussion about how their supervision was working, how they worked with supervisors, and how the ICT they had included in the drawing worked within the process. They were also asked about elements that were not in the drawing, for example, certain ICT or activities that might have appeared in a typical account of a doctoral research process but were not included.

All interview/discussions were audio recorded and transcriptions of the recordings were returned to the participants for checking. The drawings were scanned and stored electronically.

In line with the interpretive approach that framed and governed our study, the data were analysed shortly after being gathered. Analysis of the data contributed to the development of ideas about participants’ perceptions, and these were refined progressively across the instances that researchers met with participants. Perceptions were thus checked, rechecked and refined against each data set.

This iterative and inductive approach (Thomas, 2006 ) involved thematic analysis (Silverman, 2001 ) and the capture of major and common ideas (Mayring, 2000 ) expressed by participants about how ICT are perceived and used in doctoral research processes. This approach helped to operationalise a process of co-construction between researchers and participants. Through checking, rechecking, refining and confirming, the researchers were able to articulate their understanding of participant perceptions that matched participants’ expressed thoughts.

The outcome of the analysis process was four assertions concerning ways the students perceived and understood ICT within doctoral study. Because there were only two supervisor participants, the data from the supervisors served to support the assertions we were more confidently able to make about student perceptions.

Research approach, quality assurance conditions and context

Despite the (what might be argued, small) number of volunteer participants who showed interest in, and committed themselves to, this study (i.e., no drop-outs or selection being made from a pool), it is worth noting that the researchers worked with each participant over an extended period of time (prolonged engagement), focused on investigating and gathering identifiable, as well as documentable, aspects of the participants’ ICT understandings and practices (persistent observation), and employed analysis techniques that incorporated peer debriefing, member checking, and fair presentation of assertions (Guba & Lincoln, 1989 ).

The aim was to unlock and identify views of reality held by the participants. The empirical evidence was used to help develop commentary and critique of the phenomenon which was the focus of the study (i.e., ICT use), including what the phenomenon is and how it occurs/is enacted/revealed in a particular context (viz., in doctoral research). This was, therefore, a different kind of study from one that might commence with a hypothesis, which would be concerned more with objectivity, explanation and testable propositions. In short, the methods employed in the current study fitted the intention to solve a “puzzle” about a phenomenon in relation to a particular context.

As this study involved human participants, ethical approval was gained through the institutional processes. This approval (University of Otago Human Ethics Committee reference number D17/414 and Victoria University of Wellington, Ethics Committee reference number 0000023415) enabled data collection methods described in the previous section to be carried out for any doctoral students and supervisors who volunteered to participate in this study. Ethical consent, use and care of the data as well as the ethical treatment of students and staff as participants were integral to the research design, planning and implementation of the whole study.

Findings and discussion

The four assertions are now presented. Each assertion is described and quotations from the interview/discussions along with examples of drawings from the student participants are used to illustrate aspects of each assertion.

Assertion 1: ICT are impartial tools; it does not matter how ICT are used, because the endpoint, that is, thesis completion, is the justification. ICT and people are separate and separated entities.

Students talked about how they worked on their thesis document and on the process of the study they were undertaking. Comments focused on various ICT being used and often on skills needed in order to use them. Some students expressed the view that ICT were tools, separate from the project and the person involved, to be used to achieve an endpoint. For example,

So long as it's formatted – it shouldn't matter - that's their [editors’] responsibility, not mine.

There’s probably a bit more about Zoom [web conferencing application] I could learn but again for me unless it’s a problem, I’m not going to go looking for it… not just for the sake of it at the moment.

Motivation to achieve an outcome was a focus of comments that support this assertion. For many participants, the aim to complete the study and write a thesis was, naturally, a large driver for how they were managing their study. Time was precious, and they would do what they had to do to reach their goal. To be motivated to learn about a new ICT, there needed to be a purpose that sharply focussed on achieving that end.

If the technologies are suddenly not available] I’m happy to sit down with a typewriter and learn it… If I’m not driven, I won’t bother.

This focus is illustrated in Fig.  1 . The drawing shows clearly identified components that make up major elements within the stages of producing the research for the thesis. ICT are listed in relation to those components.

ICT and people are separate and separated entities

Supervisors too, tended to focus on thesis production rather than on the process of producing a thesis that includes the use of ICT (i.e., as opposed to their very clear and explicit focus on the research process). An example illustrating this is:

Generally, people think the standard of the people getting or earning a PhD is that this person should be an independent researcher. [But no] After all, we only examine a particular thesis [and] there are lots of inputs from supports and supervision from supervisors.

In summary, this assertion focusses strongly on the experience of doctoral study being about getting the project done within a research journey that gives minimal regard to the affordances of ICT. ICT are framed as necessary but also fraught, especially due to the effort and time that draw attention away from the primary goal.

Assertion 2: ICT are tools or mechanisms that prompt active thought on practices with respect to planning and managing thesis writing and project execution. ICT and individuals work alongside each other.

Views that expressed notions of there being a close interactive relationship between students and ICT came through in several of the discussions with the participants. The focus on achieving goals and endpoints was strong, but the expression of how to achieve those goals, capitalising upon the affordances that ICT present, was different from the way views were expressed in relation to Assertion 1.

On a simple level, this student describes the checking he did when weighing up the merits of a piece of software to meet his needs.

I normally do a trial version… have a play with it. And if I think they are useful then I might try it on a project. And if then I feel it’s definitely worth investing… then I’ll go buy it.

Others simply liked to explore, to see whether there was potential in any ICT they encountered, as in,

Sometimes I just like playing with stuff to see what they can do and then if they tick my boxes then I keep them and if they don't, I move on. So it's more kind of ‘search and discover’ than kind of looking for something, you know.

Describing a deeper level of activity, a degree of critique and active reflection were indicated by another student when he said,

…we tried an electronic version of putting together a programme for a New Zealand conference and I was surprised how long it took us. Whereas in the past I’ve worked with [colleagues] and we’ve just moved pieces of paper around on the floor for abstracts and we were done really quickly.

These sentiments are well-captured in Fig.  2 . Here, the focus is on experimenting with ICT rather than the research process. The process of working things out to suit the individual is foregrounded.

ICT and individuals work alongside each other

Whereas Assertion 1-type expressions presented effort in a generally negative light, Assertion 2-type expressions couched effort as an assumed part of learning something new. There was a sense expressed in comments that there will be a way to manage the “problem” to be solved, which then generated the necessary motivation to engage effort. For example,

You just know what you know when you start off; when you're unsure about what you need to do. There's a bit of a barrier in front of you. It feels a bit intimidating and overwhelming, and then you get into it and it just works. And you just kind of put all the pieces together and get something out at the end.

There was a sense that supervisors’ perspectives of ICT might support this assertion too. For instance,

[ICT are] integral to everything now – there's no such thing as doing it without [them] anymore – these are the tools with which we do all the things we do.

In summary, this assertion captures the views of students who engage actively in making decisions about which, how and why they incorporate ICT into doctoral research practices.

Assertion 3: Knowing about ICT is only part of the thinking; what is more important is getting the “flow” right. ICT and the individual are in a complementary partnership.

Perhaps prompted by the nature of the drawing task, which was to illustrate how ICT fitted within the whole process of doctoral study, several students described the challenges to bringing everything together into one process made up of many parts, sections and subsections. One participant focussed on her “workflow” in order to manage the multiple documents, tasks and schedule involved in her doctoral research journey.

What systems do I use, what's my workflow? So, I actually spent some weeks looking at … ideas from other PhD students about their workflows and how they manage it.

Similar to Assertion 2-type comments, ‘getting one’s flow right’ involved exploration and an amount of reflective decision-making. For example,

So I did a play around with that [ICT] and found it was quite useful … So I’m trying to be quite disciplined about when I’ve got a document, entering it at the time, reading an article, throw in heaps of tags rather than not …And I simply keep a note, cross referencing to the actual articles. I like to have the articles and for some key ones I like to make a note. So, if it’s a seminal paper that I know I’ll be referring back to.

Thus, students talked about how hard they worked to set up routines and processes to enable them to manage time and their research projects. As in the above excerpts, they referred to categorising documents, searching for resources, undertaking analysis, managing data, and producing the thesis itself.

In working out one’s system or flow, this student highlighted the need to know about the affordances of ICT and how others had made use of them.

…you do need to know a bit about each of the individual … capabilities of the different systems to know what's even possible… but alongside that you're kind of reading other people's ideas of how they did it, and you think that bit might work for me oh, but that bit won't… so then you can kind of mix and match a bit.

The drawing in Fig.  3 highlights the “flow”. Absent of all words, this illustration draws attention to the movement of ideas, thoughts, processes and actions, from a number of different points but all ultimately converging or contributing to the one path.

ICT and the individual are in a complementary partnership

There was a hint that at least one of the supervisors saw the need for a workflow in this same vein: “So long as [the students are] happy with what they’re using – they should use ‘a’ system,”

In summary, this assertion highlights that what is important with respect to ICT and the doctoral process is how it all comes together within one’s flow. That flow incorporates active effort on the part of the individual in finding ICT and practices that suit the individual’s approaches as well as their project demands.

Assertion 4: ICT are not neutral; there is a two-way interaction between technologies as artefacts and the use of them to achieve ends. ICT and the person are intricately linked through multiple active, practical, goal-oriented connections.

This assertion draws attention to the nature of technology as a phenomenon; that technology is not an impartial tool that has no influence on the way humans act and react. This assertion presents ICT as an artefact of technological design activity; as a source of improving efforts to achieve an endpoint; but also as an influencer and even determiner of the thinking and practices of the person interacting with the ICT (e.g., Baird, 2002 ).

On what could be argued a superficial level, this student noted some active connection between the person and the software application, beyond simple use, when he commented:

I think it goes both ways, the product has to be intuitive and you’ve got to have a little bit of inclination to try out different things.

Others went beyond the superficial to describe more in-depth relationships between themselves and the ICT they were using. When discussing her use of software to help her manage her project and her time, this student talked about how the ICT she was using supported and enhanced her thinking.

Using the application] really changed the way I started to think about [my research]. I started to be less worried about the big overwhelming long term stuff that was out there and just think, okay, this week, what am I going to do this week, how am I going to be really efficient and targeted, and I think that really helped me.

Following is another example of how ICT helped solve a problem while simultaneously having an influence on behaviour; in this instance with organising notes, ideas and documents.

“… and it's the same with my note-taking because [the programme] that I use has a similar sort of functionality that it can search text that you've written but also search notes and PDF docs and those kind of things, so it means that when you've had a random thought and put it somewhere you can find it again. Which is huge for me, so I guess that … the power of the search engine is probably the thing that drove me to become paperless, so it helps me to organize myself much better. … filing paper is a skill that I have not mastered whereas filing digital stuff is not as important because you can always just find it again.

Figure  4 illustrates this intricately intertwined interactivity among person, purpose, project, ICT and outcomes.

ICT and the person are intricately linked through multiple active, practical, goal-oriented connections

While we did not find strong evidence for supervisors’ thoughts about this integrated and embedded notion of ICT, one supervisor did note “I could probably build them into my system, but I just never have”.

In summary, Assertion 4 highlights the integral role that ICT can be perceived to play in doctoral research processes. This is more than the working-alongside connection illustrated by Assertion 2 and the complementary partnership characterised by Assertion 3.

Assertions 1 and 2 highlight that individuals hold assumptions about, and have expectations of, ICT use; and those expectations and assumptions influence and determine their judgements about ICT and their use of ICT. The assertions point to connections between perceptions and practices. Assertion 1 describes a perception that ICT are separate from the person and the task-at-hand, while Assertion 2 presents a perception in which the person and the ICT are working alongside each other in harmony or at least in a loose partnership. Both assertions focus on endpoints, but the endpoints vary according to the perception of where ICT fit into the journey towards their achievement. For Assertion 1-type expressions, there is one major endpoint. For Assertion 2-type expressions, there are multiple, shorter-term endpoints that build towards achieving the major goal of completing the thesis.

Building on Assertions 1 and 2 are Assertions 3 and 4, which highlight what may be argued as more complex levels of perceiving and working with ICT. Both assertions give some focus to inter-connections, where people and ICT partner or collaborate. Assertion 3 depICT a perception that is about complementarity; where ICT affordances are seen as worthwhile when they support and enhance the work of the individual in ways that make sense to that individual. Assertion 4 builds on Assertion 3 by bringing to light the relationship in which the person alters and changes thinking or practices because of the influence that ICT affordances can have. No evidence was found to support a possible additional claim that as well as ICT causing individuals to alter and modify thinking and behaviours due to their existence, ICT, in turn, are perceived to be able to alter their ways of responding to the people who use them. This is not out of the realms of possibility of course, with ICT increasingly being designed and built to be able to respond to users’ needs.

It is also worth mentioning that the ‘types’ of ICT and the extent of their use by the participants was not the focus of this study. However, the findings suggested that the participants’ ICT use, regardless of their PhD phase and broad discipline background, might have reflected their inability to realise the advantages of learning how to use current ICT-related devices, tools, and applications to enhance the process of undertaking their doctoral research. The evidence that emerged in this study indicated that participants’ perspectives of ICT determined their adoption practices in general (i.e., as illustrated through the four assertions). The boarder higher education context including the specific institution and supervisors, might have neglected the explicit support of PhD students’ ICT capability development in this process.

In addition, while there is no similar study being found thus far, the insights gained from this study are actually similar to the findings in the research studies into the role of ICT in undergraduate education (Butson & Sim, 2013 ; Sim & Butson, 2013 , 2014 ). Results in those studies, demonstrated students’ low levels of ICT use, may be an indication that digital devices and digital tools do not play a significant role in daily study practices. Researchers such as Esposito, Sangrà & Maina ( 2013 ) also show that the PhD students’ learning to become researchers in the digital age is much more complex than is often suggested (e.g., the skills of Prenksy ( 2001 ) “digital natives”). Becoming a researcher involves developing a complex set of knowledge, intellectual abilities, techniques and professional standards. The Researcher Development Framework (Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC), 2010 ) illustrates one useful attempt at mapping out that complexity. It could be that both students’ and supervisors’ adoption of ICT for academic purposes has been overshadowed or taken for granted as a consequence of their advanced academic level.

Implications

The four assertions can be used to provide some guidance to those supporting and participating in doctoral research processes. Students and supervisors do possess a vast array of skills, knowledge and abilities. They have a variety of experiences as well as varying reasons and levels of motivation. Their skills and capacity to make use of ICT to support their roles in the research process vary as well. The assertions that have emerged from this study will inform the planning for support activities to enhance supervisors’ and students’ professional development, whatever their background and needs.

Depending on the perceptions held about ICT and the relationship between ICT and the person in the context of the task and its goals (i.e., the doctoral study) within the doctoral research process as depicted in the four assertions, ICT tend to be seen as a challenge, a change or an opportunity. In the context of ICT use, doctoral students and supervisors may:

assume that if they do not already know how to use something it is not worth learning or exploring as that learning brings with it risk to quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the doctoral research process; and/or.

assume that students will work out the place that ICT play within the research process for themselves.

The findings of this study suggest the need to.

challenge existing ICT knowledge and skill, and to support acceptance of the need to change practices;

teach technological thinking, to enable choice and decision making about ICT;

embed ICT into practices in meaningful ways to suit individual and project needs;

highlight (explicit) responsibilities about thinking and planning skills with respect to making the best use of ICT, to ensure efficiency and effectiveness;

realise that the research process is as much about how it happens as what happens;

recast assumptions about the doctoral research process to embed ICT within it;

reflect on the meaning of effectiveness and efficiency in the context of doctoral research; and the effects of ICT in supporting and facilitating them;

understand that there is a link among ICT thinking and practice: using ICT can enhance or raise ideas that were never thought of before.

This study explored perceptions of doctoral supervisors and students of the role and place of ICT in supervision and study. It generated four assertions characterising those perceptions the relationships among people, ICT and the task-at-hand, that is, the supervised research process. As Castañeda and Selwyn ( 2018 ) argue, it is important that we have an active commitment to ‘think otherwise’ about how ICT might be better implemented across higher education settings” (p. 8). We should not assume that ICT are not important enough to let them fade into the background as they become normalised, without questioning the interrelationships that are happening between the person and the ICT. In the doctoral research setting, as one example of a higher education context, ICT do have a role to play. They cannot and should not be ignored. But seeing ICT in relationship to the person and to the setting is essential.

This project has provided insights into the doctoral students and supervisors’ perceptions of the roles played by ICT during doctoral research process. There are complex human factors, including assumptions, attitudes and conceptions about academic practices, influencing and determining perspectives as well as how ICT are incorporated into doctoral research process, behaviours and practices. Just as Kandiko and Kinchin ( 2012 ) argue that supervision cannot be looked at in the absence of the research work in which it occurs, we argue that doctoral students’ understanding and use of ICT cannot be considered independently of their research work; and that work includes relationships with their project, their supervisors, within the context of the institution, and with the ICT they do and could engage with.

Directly associated with the outcomes of this study, future studies and further exploration could focus on:

ICT use by larger and more diverse groups of doctoral students from a range of fields within discipline areas at institutions outside New Zealand;

building on the findings in order to determine how intensity of ICT use might change for students across the course of their candidature, and in relation to the nature of their research projects;

the role of supervisors, academic departments, and institutions in supporting and enhancing students’ practices and beliefs about ICT in research processes;

the ways in which supervisors engage ICT in their daily academic practices, with a view to exploring how, or if, their ICT use is an influence on PhD students’ beliefs and behaviours in using ICT.

Studying ICT in these directions could offer fresh perspectives and opportunities to think differently and reveal an active way of understanding the role of ICT in doctoral education.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the students and supervisors who shared their reflections and willingly engaged with us in this project.

We acknowledge the support of Ako Aotearoa, The National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence, New Zealand through its Regional Hub Project Fund (RHPF), and the support of our institutions, University of Otago and Victoria University of Wellington.

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Stein, S.J., Sim, K.N. Enhancing the roles of information and communication technologies in doctoral research processes. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 17 , 34 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00212-3

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00212-3

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Communication Technology Research Paper Topics

This list of communication technology research paper topics  provides the list of 10 potential topics for research papers and an overview article on the history of communications technology.

1. Automatic Telephony Systems

Fundamental to the expansion of telephone service was the widespread use of automatic telephone switches. Initial telephone service sought to connect every telephone directly with every other instrument in the same market. Soon manual switchboards were installed for more efficient operation. As more telephones entered service, switchboards became larger and more operators were required. Replacing often-slow manual operators, automatic devices were electromechanical for most of the first century of telephone usage, slowly being replaced by more efficient electronic (and eventually digital) systems.

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To the many technological inventions of the nineteenth century that improved communications, such as the telegraph and the telephone, the twentieth century added motion pictures, radio, television, and the Internet. Most of the products created for improving communication in the nineteenth century improved communication between individuals. During the twentieth century, new technologies added ways for groups or organizations to communicate to other groups, marking the birth of mass communications. These new media would have profound effects on entertainment, how people received news, and politics. See the article below for the history and overview of communications technology.

3. Digital Telephony

Digital telephony is the digital transmission of voice over a communications network. This technology entails digital encoding of voice and digital transmission with regenerating repeaters, switches, and handsets. Using digitally enabled multiplexing, voice is integrated with computer data and digitized images, video, and other information in current telephone and computer networks. Digital telephony has rapidly replaced analog telephony due to many factors: VSLI technology provides lower costs; discrete values sampled by receivers and regenerating repeaters enable recovery from most transmission noise; digital methods of multiplexing, such as time division multiplexing (TDM) and code division multiple access (CDMA), afford higher throughput. As VoIP, the PSTN, and satellite telephony continue to develop, will packet switching and circuit switching continue to coexist and will a single technology dominate in digital telephony?

4. Electronic Communications

The development of digital computing and communication technology in the 1940s and 1950s was largely driven by Cold War military needs in the midst of closed-world politics. Extensive funding was provided for large-scale research and development projects during this period by the U.S. military. The origins of the communication of digital information can be attributed to the Whirlwind computer, which was developed under these conditions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. This was a powerful general-purpose digital computer orientated toward real-time control and flight simulation. However, it eventually found use as the control computer in the semiautomatic ground environment (SAGE) air defense system. SAGE connected remote early-warning radar stations in the far reaches of the Arctic with control centers in the heartland to automatically direct fighter aircraft to intercept the perceived onslaught of Soviet bombers carrying doomsday nuclear arsenals. A means had to be invented to communicate digital information over long distances between the radar stations and the SAGE control centers, and this resulted in the techniques for the long-distance communication of digital data being developed. This is the origin of the modem (as it later became known) and the system became operational in 1952. The name is derived from the process of the modulation and demodulation, whereby a waveform of digital data (ones and zeros) are superimposed onto a sinusoidal carrier wave, since the square waveform of digital data cannot be sent over distances. This information is then extracted with the process of demodulation on the receiver side. It should also be noted that many other key computing technological developments resulted from the SAGE project, such as video displays, magnetic core memory, and networking among others. This technology diffused into civilian use with the SABRE airlines reservation system built by IBM for American Airlines in 1964, which inherited a lot of technological developments from SAGE. The system used modems to transmit data signals over ordinary analog telephone channels and was an early example of the general trend of the diffusion of military-sponsored computing technology into broader society.

5. Fax Machine

Fax, or facsimile, technology refers to the concept of replicating printed documents across long distances and dates back to the nineteenth century, along with the advent of the telegraph. Embracing the emerging electromechanical technology of the time, several devices were developed; however, diffusion was limited due to the elaborate and intricate mechanism required as well as interoperability between disparate devices. Among the first on record was Alexander Bain’s ‘‘chemical telegraph,’’ patented in America in 1843. The device used a metallic contact that sensed the raised text, which triggered the flow of electric current. In 1847 Frederick Bakewell invented the ‘‘copying telegraph,’’ which introduced the concept of scanning the source document line by line. Both systems required pendulums and electromagnets for synchronization. However, fierce competition with Samuel Morse over long-distance telegraph lines led to legal disputes and Bain’s patent was declared invalid. Although the facsimile technology did not proliferate along with the telegraph, the concept of facsimile transmission did, and isolated systems continued to emerge wherever telegraphic networks were set up. A successful system was demonstrated in France in 1862 by Abbe Casselli, and a network of commercial stations was established. In America, Elisha Gray developed a system comprised of rheostats and electromagnets. Despite some successes, the largely mechanical technology was cumbersome, and lack of international interoperability and slowness of the system compared to Morse’s telegraph prevented commercial success and widespread proliferation.

6. Long Distance Telephony

Originally a means of communication suited only for small or medium distances, from about 1920, cable and wire telephony—soon to be supplemented by radio telephony—began to conquer the longer distances as well. Advances in telephone telephony, such as the post-World War II transoceanic cables, became a key factor in the trend towards the global information society. Much of the progress was based in new scientific knowledge or transformation of such knowledge into technological methods and artifacts. During the last three decades of the 20th century, an increasing part of intercontinental telephony was transmitted wirelessly through satellites rather than through cables. Many experts believe that future long-distance communications will rely on a mixture of optical-fiber cables and satellites, with a major part of the telephone traffic going through the satellite service.

7. Mobile (Cell) Telephones

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, mobile or cell phones developed from a minority communication tool, characterized by its prevalence in the 1980s among young professionals, to a pervasive cultural object. In many developed countries, more than three quarters of the population owned a cell phone by the end of the century. Cell phone technology is a highly evolved form of the personal radio systems used by truck drivers (citizens band, or CB, radio) and police forces in which receiver/transmitter units communicate with one another or a base antenna. Such systems work adequately over short distances with a low volume of traffic but cannot be expanded to cope with mass communication due to the limited space (bandwidth) available in the electromagnetic spectrum. Transmitting and receiving on one frequency, they allow for talking or listening but not both simultaneously. For mobile radio systems to make the step up to effective telephony, a large number of two-way conversations needed to be accommodated, requiring a duplex channel (two separate frequencies, taking up double the bandwidth). In order to establish national mobile phone networks without limiting capacity or the range of travel of handsets, a number of technological improvements had to occur.

8. Radio-Frequency Electronics

Radio was originally conceived as a means for interpersonal communications, either person-to-person, or person-to-people, using analog waveforms containing either Morse code or actual sound. The use of radio frequencies (RF) designed to carry digital data in the form of binary code rather than voice and to replace physical wired connections between devices began in the 1970s, but the technology was not commercialized until the 1990s through digital cellular phone networks known as personal communications services (PCS) and an emerging group of wireless data network technologies just reaching commercial viability. The first of these is a so-called wireless personal area network (WPAN) technology known as Bluetooth. There are also two wireless local area networks (WLANs), generally grouped under the name Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity): (1) Wi-Fi, also known by its Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) designation 802.11b, and (2) Wi-Fi5 (802.11a).

Although the concept of wireless data networks is fairly new, the basic technology was created during World War II by two unlikely ‘‘scientists’’: Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr and orchestra leader George Antheil. Their U.S. patent described frequency-hopping, radio-controlled torpedoes that could not be jammed by the Nazis.

9. Satellite Communications

Arthur C. Clarke, a science-fiction writer and an early member of the British Interplanetary Society, is credited as first stating the theoretical possibility of satellite communications. The February 1945 issue of the British technical journal Wireless World included a letter from Clarke under the title ‘‘V-2 for Ionospheric Research’’ in which he explained that three artificial satellites positioned 120 degrees apart in geosynchronous orbit could provide television and microwave coverage to the entire planet. Three months later, he privately circulated six typewritten copies of a paper titled ‘‘The Space Station: Its Radio Applications.’’ A refined version, where Clarke gave a detailed, technical analysis of the orbital geometry and communications links, appeared under the title ‘‘Extra-Terrestrial Relays’’ in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World. Clark, however, acknowledged that the forerunner of the concept came from Hermann Potocnik, whose 1929 book Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums [The Problem of Space Travel ], published under the pseudonym Noordung, described ‘‘stationary circling.’’

The USSR’s launch in 1957 of Sputnik-1, which transmitted an electronic signal back to earth simply for tracking purposes, sparked serious efforts by the U.S. to develop satellite communications for both military and commercial use. Score, developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency and launched in December 1958, became the world’s first active communications satellite. It received messages transmitted from a ground station and stored them on a tape recorder for retransmission back to earth. Launched in August 1960, the National Aeronautics American and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Echo-1 first tested the merits of using a passive ‘‘reflector’’ satellite—a 30-meter-diameter, aluminized mylar balloon—for the transmission of voice, data, and photographs between ground terminals. The U.S. Army’s Courier satellite, launched in October 1960, operated on much the same principles as Score but carried solar cells and rechargeable batteries to extend its potential lifetime. Stemming from its interest in transoceanic communication, AT&T launched Telstar-1 in June 1962 to experiment with telegraph, facsimile, television, and multichannel telephone transmissions between the U.S. and Europe, as well as Japan. With the launch of NASA’s Syncom-2 in July 1963, the world finally had its first geosynchronous communications satellite. Not until 1975 would the USSR achieve a similar feat with its Raduga spacecraft for military and governmental communications, followed by its Ekran series in 1976 for direct television broadcasting and its Gorizont series in 1979 for domestic and international telecommunications.

10. Telecommunications

The history of two-way communication is embedded in a series of much deeper histories: technology, imperialism, and the rise of the nation state, to name but a few. These, in turn, are embedded in a discourse that returns theory to a central place in non-Marxist histories. Several theoretical enterprises emerging from the academic disciplines of economics and political science look to technology as one of the major engines that drive history and to telecommunications technology as the most significant technology in the current world economy.

Although the global telecommunications system was shaped by the spectacular growth of the British submarine cable system after the first successful transatlantic cable opened for business in 1866, the 1900s saw considerable improvement of a system that had reached much of its modern shape by the late 1800s. Seven innovations stand out: 1. Low-frequency wireless telegraphy, starting around 1900 2. High-frequency wireless, which allowed telephony as well as telegraphy, in the 1920s 3. Microwave wireless, which led to radar, in the 1930s 4. Submarine telephone cables in the 1950s 5. Satellites in the 1960s 6. Fiber-optic submarine cables in the 1980s 7. Cellular wireless telephones in the 1990s. These seven innovations have increased the capacity or convenience of the global communications system and have trended towards radically lowered costs. Developments in two-way communications often encouraged one-way communications, such as the development of broadcast radio entertainment out of wireless telecommunications. Occasionally the flow of innovation has reversed, as in the importance of electronic television technology to the development of radar.

History of Communication Technology

Motion Pictures

The first major communication improvement to be commercialized in the twentieth century was the motion picture. Thomas Edison invented the first practical motion picture camera in the U.S., and in 1896 he showed a motion picture to the public in the New York City Music Hall. The U.S. was the pacesetter for the film industry and New York City was the early center of the motion picture business. The first narrative film was The Great Train Robbery (1903). During World War I, Hollywood began to replace New York as the home of the movie industry. By the 1920s, Hollywood had clearly become the movie-making capital of the world and silent-film stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Mary Pickford established themselves there.

Technological developments in the early twentieth century made sound motion pictures possible and greatly changed the film industry. In 1926, Warner Brothers, then a relatively minor studio, released the film Don Juan with a synchronized orchestral accompaniment. The studio had purchased the sound-on-disk Vitaphone system from American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T). Warner Brothers sought to make short-term profits by supplying the technology to theaters that could not afford to hire live orchestras. This first attempt was successful enough that the first talking movie—The Jazz Singer staring Al Jolson—was released in 1927. In addition to the orchestral accompaniment, this film also featured popular songs and dialogue. The new sound films enjoyed great success and almost all Hollywood films included sound by the late 1920s, leading to greatly increased profits for the studios.

The introduction of sound did lead to some problems and changes in the film industry. Problems included the tremendous expense now involved in the production of motion pictures and the primitive nature of microphones, which forced actors to remain almost stationary and would pick up the sound of cameras and other set noise. Changes included the replacement of many silentera actors with new actors with stage experience due to the fact that with sound, film actors had to have pleasant sounding voices without strong foreign accents. Sound led to the production of more realistic films, including crime epics and historical biographies. Musicals also became an important film genre, including the animated musicals of Walt Disney.

Movies would become the world’s leading form of entertainment until the advent of television after World War II. For many, films represented the decadence of twentieth century society, displaying modern sexual mores on the screen. Along with radio, the film industry also became big business. Furthermore, the motion picture industry centered in Hollywood served to export the culture of the U.S., as moviegoers around the world viewed U.S.- made films.

Although motion pictures were mostly used for entertainment, showings often included such current news events as wars, parades, and speeches. In the 1930s, after sound had been added, newsreels covering the week’s major events were shown in most theaters along with the movies. Authoritarian governments that emerged between the two world wars became particularly adept at utilizing film as a propaganda tool. The Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union and the Nazis in Germany successfully used motion pictures for political ends. The most famous example of this political use is Triumph of the Will, a 1934 film by the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl that depicted a Nazi rally at Nuremberg.

During the war, film was used to support the war aims of governments. In the U.S., for example, Hollywood backed the government’s information campaign through the Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs, which produced commercial features with patriotic themes. Hollywood also produced documentaries such as Frank Capra’s Why We Fight, which sought to explain the war to both soldiers and civilians.

Immediately after the war, Hollywood enjoyed a brief boom, as two-thirds of Americans went to the movies at least once a week. Soon, however, antitrust legislation, protectionist quotas abroad, and the rise of television cut into Hollywood’s profits. The Cold War also greatly affected the film industry, as many suspected communists were blacklisted by the studios and film-making became more conservative. Traditional genres such as musicals and westerns continued after the war, while others grew in importance, including many lower-budget films that dealt with social problems such as racism or alcoholism. Also popular was film noir, which offered a dark interpretation of American society.

World War II devastated the film industries in much of Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan. A postwar renaissance was led by Italy and its neorealist movement that attempted to show the reality of a country afflicted by warfare. Great Britain and France soon followed in reviving their film industries. Japan also was able to restore its motion picture industry after the war, as many studios were left intact. Akira Kurosawa led the Japanese revival with numerous films, including Rashoman.

A film industry developed in many Third World countries. India had a vibrant film industry led by director Satyajit Ray. Many of India’s films provided an alternative cinema with artistic merit. At the same time, India also became the world’s largest producer of low-quality films for domestic consumption, making more than 700 motion pictures in sixteen languages each year. Film was often the only access to audiovisual entertainment for the many poor and illiterate Indians.

Latin America and Africa also developed sometimes militant, alternative forms of film; for example, in Cuba during the 1960s, when the country’s revolution influenced world-renowned directors such as Toma´ s Gutıerrez Alea and Humberto Sola´ s. The so-called Cinema Novo (New Cinema) developed in Brazil during the 1960s and spread to other Third World countries. While many Third World nations created sometimes revolutionary film genres, military dictatorships also repressed motion pictures in numerous countries such as Argentina.

By the early twentieth century, wireless communication began to appear. The first example of wireless communication was the radio. In 1895, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first wireless telegraph message. Starting in 1901, Marconi used radio telegrams to communicate with ships on the Atlantic Ocean. The usefulness of radio was seen in its use during the Russo–Japanese War in 1905. In the U.S., experimental broadcasting to a mass audience started in 1910 with a program by the famous singer Enrico Caruso at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Perhaps the most dramatic example of radio’s value in spreading information was its use in reporting on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, which demonstrated radio’s ability to allow people to experience distant events as they occurred. World War I interrupted some radio research, however the demands of military communications sped up the development of radio technology.

During the 1920s, what had been more of a hobby became a mass medium that played a central role in news reporting and entertainment. A number of experimental broadcasting stations had converted to commercial stations by broadcasting programs on a regular basis, including news such as the results of the 1920 presidential election in the U.S. In the U.S., because radio was a good way to communicate with large groups of people, broadcasting rapidly consolidated into national networks in order to attract advertising revenue to support news and entertainment programming. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) created the first nationwide broadcast network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), in 1926. In Europe and some other parts of the world, governments generally controlled radio broadcasting.

Radio played an important role in twentieth century communications, as it allowed people much easier access to entertainment since many families owned radios. By the end of the 1920s, two-thirds of homes in the U.S. owned radio receivers. People no longer had to go to a concert, play, or sporting event to be entertained. Instead, they could now enjoy many forms of entertainment from the comfort of their own homes. Despite the fact that radio broadcasts could reach millions of people, the medium gave those in their homes a sense of immediacy and intimacy. Furthermore, unlike written forms of communication, no formal education was needed to enjoy radio programs. Many forms of popular entertainment shifted to the radio, allowing them to maintain and even expand their audiences. Radio offered a wide variety of entertainment genres, including dramas, comedies, sports, and music.

Besides providing entertainment, supplying news, and making money for entrepreneurs, radio also proved to be an important tool for politicians, better enabling them to mobilize the masses. Perhaps best known are Franklin Roosevelt’s ‘‘Fireside Chats,’’ which allowed the president of the U.S. to reach the public directly during the Great Depression and World War II. As was the case with film, authoritarian regimes in particular made use of radio technology. Italy’s Benito Mussolini pioneered the use of radio to address the nation. In the Soviet Union, the first experimental radio broadcasts began in 1919. In 1922, a central radio station in Moscow began broadcasting. By 1924, regular broadcasts could be heard throughout most of the USSR and by 1937, there were some 90 radio transmitters in operation in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Leaders in Nazi Germany also made effective use of the radio during the 1930s and 1940s. In Japan, the right-wing government utilized radio to promote its goals leading up to World War II.

Radio has also become an important means of communications in other parts of the world. In Latin America, for example, radio, along with television, is the main medium for transmitting information. In most Latin American countries, radio reaches far more people than print media, due to lower rates of literacy and lack of purchasing power. From the 1930s to the 1960s, many radio stations broadcast radionovelas, serial radio programs similar to soap operas. Since the 1960s, such programming has largely moved to television. As was the case elsewhere, early Latin American radio also featured variety shows, dramas, sports, talk shows, and news.

Radio also contributed to the spread of Latin American culture to other parts of the world, especially in the realm of dance and music. Argentine tango, Mexican boleros, salsa from New York’s Latin community, and Brazilian samba all became popular beyond the borders of Latin America in large part because of radio airtime. Samba, for example, emerged as a musical and dance form from the poor sections of Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil at the time. From its Afro-Brazilian roots, samba emerged from a locally popular form to one that had a national importance in Brazil. As samba received increased radio airplay, it seemed to unite the country and came to represent Brazilian nationalism. Performers such as Carmen Miranda, who later also became a Hollywood film star, popularized the music on the Brazilian airwaves. Soon, listeners heard samba on their radios throughout the world, demonstrating that mass culture could spread from poorer countries to elite consumers around the globe due to communications technology such as radio.

From the 1990s, radio stations in Latin America have often become more specialized as they seek audiences. Amplitude modulation (AM) stations tend to carry news, talk, and local popular music. Also, they often cater to the interests of groups outside of the cultural and linguistic mainstream. For example, radio stations in Lima, Peru feature ethnic music and news in Quechua or Aymara languages for recent migrants from the highlands. Frequency modulation (FM) stations emphasize music, particularly national popular music or international music. International music tends to be popular among the young and affluent, while national music appeals to an older, more working-class audience.

Another important twentieth century development was television, which would soon overshadow radio and motion pictures. In the U.S. during the late 1920s, many attempts were made to create an experimental telecast, and a few met with success, particularly RCA’s efforts. In 1936, NBC provided 150 experimental television sets to homes in New York City and sent telecasts to them, the first show being the cartoon ‘‘Felix the Cat.’’ By 1939, NBC was providing regular telecasts but to a limited market. When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, however, all television projects were suspended until the war ended in 1945.

After the war, television development continued where it left off, with the invention of better television sets, creative programming, and larger markets. The first coast-to-coast program was President Harry Truman’s opening speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in 1951. By the 1950s, television had become a profitable industry. Television enjoyed a ‘‘golden age’’ and increasingly replaced radio as the principal mass medium. Indeed, television became a key part of social life in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Following World War II, a growing number of people had more money and more leisure time, both of which were often spent on television.

While early televisions in the U.S. were largely affordable, they were often unreliable. Technological improvements soon made television much more reliable and appealing. These improvements included the replacement of vacuum tubes with the transistor and the development of color sets. In 1953, the first color telecast was made, which spread so fast that by the 1960s, most telecasts were in color. Later advancements include the spread of cable television in the 1980s, which gave viewers access to dozens of specialized channels and challenged the power of the traditional television networks. Many of the newly available cable channels, such as MTV and CNN, would have important effects on society and culture. The end of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of satellite and high-definition television, which offered viewers even more choices and improved the technical quality of television.

Television continued the process of the globalization of U.S. culture, as viewers around the world watched comedies and dramas produced in the U.S. Sporting events also helped to spread the U.S.’s cultural values. The National Basketball Association (NBA) was particularly successful in its international marketing efforts, popularizing its sport around the globe and creating stars such as Michael Jordan, who arguably became the most recognized athlete in the world. In addition, U.S.- based businesses, such as Nike, benefited from the globalization of basketball through television, as the sport helped to sell more of its athletic shoes. Yet it was not only basketball and the U.S. that dominated the use of television. During the 1986 soccer World Cup in Mexico, games were played under the midday sun in order to be broadcast during primetime in European countries.

Television grew more slowly in the Soviet Union than in the U.S. and Western Europe. As late as 1960, only five percent of the Soviet population could watch television. Television audiences grew during the 1970s and 1980s, often at the expense of film and theater audiences. By 1991, 97 percent of the population could view television, and a typical audience for the nightly news from Moscow numbered 150 million.

Television also became available in Latin American countries during the 1950s, when it was largely restricted to an upper- and middle-class urban audience. In this early phase, programming was limited to live, local productions. From the 1960s, television became much more of a mass medium. In this period, much of the programming was imported from abroad, especially the U.S. By the 1970s and 1980s, high-quality national production appeared, especially in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. The most important and successful productions were telenovelas, a form of the soap opera. By 2000, in some countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, perhaps 90 percent of the population had regular access to television. While the figure is lower in rural areas, even this began to change in the 1980s when satellite dishes linked to repeater transmitters allowed for increased access in remote areas.

Computers and the Internet

While film, radio, and television all had dramatic effects on communications in the twentieth century, all three were still ‘‘one-way’’ media that lacked any sort of interactive capabilities. The advent of the computer revolution and in particular the Internet changed this situation in the late twentieth century. While early computers had been large and slow, by the 1970s and 1980s, engineers centered in California’s so-called Silicon Valley created increasingly smaller computers with greater memory capacity. After these hardware developments, improvements in software followed that allowed computer users to word process, play games, and run businesses. These technological improvements in computer hardware and software would soon have a profound effect on communications and commerce with the development of the Internet.

The creation of the Internet was the result of attempts to connect research networks in the U.S. and Europe. In the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Defense created an open network to help academic, contract, and government employees communicate unclassified information related to defense work. After crucial technological advances in the 1970s, in 1980 the Department of Defense adopted the transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) standard, which allowed networks to route and assemble data packets and also send data to its ultimate destination through a global addressing mechanism.

During the 1980s, the defense functions were removed from the network, and the National Science Foundation operated the remainder, adding many new features to the network and expanding its use around the world. While government agencies were the principal early users of the Internet, by the 1980s its use had spread to the scientific and academic community. By the 1990s, the Internet had become increasingly commercialized and privatized. The rise in the use of personal computers and the development of local area networks to connect these computers contributed to the expansion of the Internet. Starting in 1988, commercial electronic mail (e-mail) services were connected to the Internet, leading to a boom in traffic. The creation of the World Wide Web and easy to use Web browsers made the Internet more accessible so that by the late 1990s, there were more than 10,000 Internet providers around the world with more than 350 million users.

In the early twenty-first century, the Internet is a critical component of the computer revolution, offering e-mail, chat rooms, access to the wealth of information on the Web, and many Internet-supported applications. The Internet has had a dramatic impact on global society. E-mail is rapidly replacing long-distance telephone calls, and chat rooms have created social groups dedicated to specific subjects, but with members living around the world. The Internet has not only changed how people communicate but also how they work, purchase, and play. Many people now work at home, using the Internet to stay in touch with the office. People have also begun to use the Internet for banking and shopping services rather than so-called ‘‘brick and mortar’’ locations.

The communications revolution of the twentieth century created many new social problems that will have to be addressed in the twenty-first century. While people have access to more information than ever before, that information, often unfiltered and invalidated, has created several generations of children who are seemingly immune to extreme violence. Health concerns are also an issue, as people spend less time in outdoor activities and more time sitting in front of the television or computer. The online nature of the Internet will also make privacy one of the major issues of the near future.

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• Published: 31 August 2024

Knowledge mapping and evolution of research on older adults’ technology acceptance: a bibliometric study from 2013 to 2023

• Xianru Shang   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0000-8906-3216 1 ,
• Zijian Liu 1 ,
• Chen Gong 1 ,
• Zhigang Hu 1 ,
• Yuexuan Wu 1 &
• Chengliang Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2208-3508 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  1115 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

• Science, technology and society

The rapid expansion of information technology and the intensification of population aging are two prominent features of contemporary societal development. Investigating older adults’ acceptance and use of technology is key to facilitating their integration into an information-driven society. Given this context, the technology acceptance of older adults has emerged as a prioritized research topic, attracting widespread attention in the academic community. However, existing research remains fragmented and lacks a systematic framework. To address this gap, we employed bibliometric methods, utilizing the Web of Science Core Collection to conduct a comprehensive review of literature on older adults’ technology acceptance from 2013 to 2023. Utilizing VOSviewer and CiteSpace for data assessment and visualization, we created knowledge mappings of research on older adults’ technology acceptance. Our study employed multidimensional methods such as co-occurrence analysis, clustering, and burst analysis to: (1) reveal research dynamics, key journals, and domains in this field; (2) identify leading countries, their collaborative networks, and core research institutions and authors; (3) recognize the foundational knowledge system centered on theoretical model deepening, emerging technology applications, and research methods and evaluation, uncovering seminal literature and observing a shift from early theoretical and influential factor analyses to empirical studies focusing on individual factors and emerging technologies; (4) moreover, current research hotspots are primarily in the areas of factors influencing technology adoption, human-robot interaction experiences, mobile health management, and aging-in-place technology, highlighting the evolutionary context and quality distribution of research themes. Finally, we recommend that future research should deeply explore improvements in theoretical models, long-term usage, and user experience evaluation. Overall, this study presents a clear framework of existing research in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance, providing an important reference for future theoretical exploration and innovative applications.

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Introduction.

In contemporary society, the rapid development of information technology has been intricately intertwined with the intensifying trend of population aging. According to the latest United Nations forecast, by 2050, the global population aged 65 and above is expected to reach 1.6 billion, representing about 16% of the total global population (UN 2023 ). Given the significant challenges of global aging, there is increasing evidence that emerging technologies have significant potential to maintain health and independence for older adults in their home and healthcare environments (Barnard et al. 2013 ; Soar 2010 ; Vancea and Solé-Casals 2016 ). This includes, but is not limited to, enhancing residential safety with smart home technologies (Touqeer et al. 2021 ; Wang et al. 2022 ), improving living independence through wearable technologies (Perez et al. 2023 ), and increasing medical accessibility via telehealth services (Kruse et al. 2020 ). Technological innovations are redefining the lifestyles of older adults, encouraging a shift from passive to active participation (González et al. 2012 ; Mostaghel 2016 ). Nevertheless, the effective application and dissemination of technology still depends on user acceptance and usage intentions (Naseri et al. 2023 ; Wang et al. 2023a ; Xia et al. 2024 ; Yu et al. 2023 ). Particularly, older adults face numerous challenges in accepting and using new technologies. These challenges include not only physical and cognitive limitations but also a lack of technological experience, along with the influences of social and economic factors (Valk et al. 2018 ; Wilson et al. 2021 ).

User acceptance of technology is a significant focus within information systems (IS) research (Dai et al. 2024 ), with several models developed to explain and predict user behavior towards technology usage, including the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1989 ), TAM2, TAM3, and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al. 2003 ). Older adults, as a group with unique needs, exhibit different behavioral patterns during technology acceptance than other user groups, and these uniquenesses include changes in cognitive abilities, as well as motivations, attitudes, and perceptions of the use of new technologies (Chen and Chan 2011 ). The continual expansion of technology introduces considerable challenges for older adults, rendering the understanding of their technology acceptance a research priority. Thus, conducting in-depth research into older adults’ acceptance of technology is critically important for enhancing their integration into the information society and improving their quality of life through technological advancements.

Reviewing relevant literature to identify research gaps helps further solidify the theoretical foundation of the research topic. However, many existing literature reviews primarily focus on the factors influencing older adults’ acceptance or intentions to use technology. For instance, Ma et al. ( 2021 ) conducted a comprehensive analysis of the determinants of older adults’ behavioral intentions to use technology; Liu et al. ( 2022 ) categorized key variables in studies of older adults’ technology acceptance, noting a shift in focus towards social and emotional factors; Yap et al. ( 2022 ) identified seven categories of antecedents affecting older adults’ use of technology from an analysis of 26 articles, including technological, psychological, social, personal, cost, behavioral, and environmental factors; Schroeder et al. ( 2023 ) extracted 119 influencing factors from 59 articles and further categorized these into six themes covering demographics, health status, and emotional awareness. Additionally, some studies focus on the application of specific technologies, such as Ferguson et al. ( 2021 ), who explored barriers and facilitators to older adults using wearable devices for heart monitoring, and He et al. ( 2022 ) and Baer et al. ( 2022 ), who each conducted in-depth investigations into the acceptance of social assistive robots and mobile nutrition and fitness apps, respectively. In summary, current literature reviews on older adults’ technology acceptance exhibit certain limitations. Due to the interdisciplinary nature and complex knowledge structure of this field, traditional literature reviews often rely on qualitative analysis, based on literature analysis and periodic summaries, which lack sufficient objectivity and comprehensiveness. Additionally, systematic research is relatively limited, lacking a macroscopic description of the research trajectory from a holistic perspective. Over the past decade, research on older adults’ technology acceptance has experienced rapid growth, with a significant increase in literature, necessitating the adoption of new methods to review and examine the developmental trends in this field (Chen 2006 ; Van Eck and Waltman 2010 ). Bibliometric analysis, as an effective quantitative research method, analyzes published literature through visualization, offering a viable approach to extracting patterns and insights from a large volume of papers, and has been widely applied in numerous scientific research fields (Achuthan et al. 2023 ; Liu and Duffy 2023 ). Therefore, this study will employ bibliometric methods to systematically analyze research articles related to older adults’ technology acceptance published in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2013 to 2023, aiming to understand the core issues and evolutionary trends in the field, and to provide valuable references for future related research. Specifically, this study aims to explore and answer the following questions:

RQ1: What are the research dynamics in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance over the past decade? What are the main academic journals and fields that publish studies related to older adults’ technology acceptance?

RQ2: How is the productivity in older adults’ technology acceptance research distributed among countries, institutions, and authors?

RQ3: What are the knowledge base and seminal literature in older adults’ technology acceptance research? How has the research theme progressed?

RQ4: What are the current hot topics and their evolutionary trajectories in older adults’ technology acceptance research? How is the quality of research distributed?

Methodology and materials

Research method.

In recent years, bibliometrics has become one of the crucial methods for analyzing literature reviews and is widely used in disciplinary and industrial intelligence analysis (Jing et al. 2023 ; Lin and Yu 2024a ; Wang et al. 2024a ; Xu et al. 2021 ). Bibliometric software facilitates the visualization analysis of extensive literature data, intuitively displaying the network relationships and evolutionary processes between knowledge units, and revealing the underlying knowledge structure and potential information (Chen et al. 2024 ; López-Robles et al. 2018 ; Wang et al. 2024c ). This method provides new insights into the current status and trends of specific research areas, along with quantitative evidence, thereby enhancing the objectivity and scientific validity of the research conclusions (Chen et al. 2023 ; Geng et al. 2024 ). VOSviewer and CiteSpace are two widely used bibliometric software tools in academia (Pan et al. 2018 ), recognized for their robust functionalities based on the JAVA platform. Although each has its unique features, combining these two software tools effectively constructs mapping relationships between literature knowledge units and clearly displays the macrostructure of the knowledge domains. Particularly, VOSviewer, with its excellent graphical representation capabilities, serves as an ideal tool for handling large datasets and precisely identifying the focal points and hotspots of research topics. Therefore, this study utilizes VOSviewer (version 1.6.19) and CiteSpace (version 6.1.R6), combined with in-depth literature analysis, to comprehensively examine and interpret the research theme of older adults’ technology acceptance through an integrated application of quantitative and qualitative methods.

Data source

Web of Science is a comprehensively recognized database in academia, featuring literature that has undergone rigorous peer review and editorial scrutiny (Lin and Yu 2024b ; Mongeon and Paul-Hus 2016 ; Pranckutė 2021 ). This study utilizes the Web of Science Core Collection as its data source, specifically including three major citation indices: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). These indices encompass high-quality research literature in the fields of science, social sciences, and arts and humanities, ensuring the comprehensiveness and reliability of the data. We combined “older adults” with “technology acceptance” through thematic search, with the specific search strategy being: TS = (elder OR elderly OR aging OR ageing OR senile OR senior OR old people OR “older adult*”) AND TS = (“technology acceptance” OR “user acceptance” OR “consumer acceptance”). The time span of literature search is from 2013 to 2023, with the types limited to “Article” and “Review” and the language to “English”. Additionally, the search was completed by October 27, 2023, to avoid data discrepancies caused by database updates. The initial search yielded 764 journal articles. Given that searches often retrieve articles that are superficially relevant but actually non-compliant, manual screening post-search was essential to ensure the relevance of the literature (Chen et al. 2024 ). Through manual screening, articles significantly deviating from the research theme were eliminated and rigorously reviewed. Ultimately, this study obtained 500 valid sample articles from the Web of Science Core Collection. The complete PRISMA screening process is illustrated in Fig. 1 .

Presentation of the data culling process in detail.

Data standardization

Raw data exported from databases often contain multiple expressions of the same terminology (Nguyen and Hallinger 2020 ). To ensure the accuracy and consistency of data, it is necessary to standardize the raw data (Strotmann and Zhao 2012 ). This study follows the data standardization process proposed by Taskin and Al ( 2019 ), mainly executing the following operations:

(1) Standardization of author and institution names is conducted to address different name expressions for the same author. For instance, “Chan, Alan Hoi Shou” and “Chan, Alan H. S.” are considered the same author, and distinct authors with the same name are differentiated by adding identifiers. Diverse forms of institutional names are unified to address variations caused by name changes or abbreviations, such as standardizing “FRANKFURT UNIV APPL SCI” and “Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences,” as well as “Chinese University of Hong Kong” and “University of Hong Kong” to consistent names.

(2) Different expressions of journal names are unified. For example, “International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction” and “Int J Hum Comput Interact” are standardized to a single name. This ensures consistency in journal names and prevents misclassification of literature due to differing journal names. Additionally, it involves checking if the journals have undergone name changes in the past decade to prevent any impact on the analysis due to such changes.

(3) Keywords data are cleansed by removing words that do not directly pertain to specific research content (e.g., people, review), merging synonyms (e.g., “UX” and “User Experience,” “aging-in-place” and “aging in place”), and standardizing plural forms of keywords (e.g., “assistive technologies” and “assistive technology,” “social robots” and “social robot”). This reduces redundant information in knowledge mapping.

Bibliometric results and analysis

Distribution power (rq1), literature descriptive statistical analysis.

Table 1 presents a detailed descriptive statistical overview of the literature in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance. After deduplication using the CiteSpace software, this study confirmed a valid sample size of 500 articles. Authored by 1839 researchers, the documents encompass 792 research institutions across 54 countries and are published in 217 different academic journals. As of the search cutoff date, these articles have accumulated 13,829 citations, with an annual average of 1156 citations, and an average of 27.66 citations per article. The h-index, a composite metric of quantity and quality of scientific output (Kamrani et al. 2021 ), reached 60 in this study.

Trends in publications and disciplinary distribution

The number of publications and citations are significant indicators of the research field’s development, reflecting its continuity, attention, and impact (Ale Ebrahim et al. 2014 ). The ranking of annual publications and citations in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance studies is presented chronologically in Fig. 2A . The figure shows a clear upward trend in the amount of literature in this field. Between 2013 and 2017, the number of publications increased slowly and decreased in 2018. However, in 2019, the number of publications increased rapidly to 52 and reached a peak of 108 in 2022, which is 6.75 times higher than in 2013. In 2022, the frequency of document citations reached its highest point with 3466 citations, reflecting the widespread recognition and citation of research in this field. Moreover, the curve of the annual number of publications fits a quadratic function, with a goodness-of-fit R 2 of 0.9661, indicating that the number of future publications is expected to increase even more rapidly.

A Trends in trends in annual publications and citations (2013–2023). B Overlay analysis of the distribution of discipline fields.

Figure 2B shows that research on older adults’ technology acceptance involves the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge. According to Web of Science Categories, these 500 articles are distributed across 85 different disciplines. We have tabulated the top ten disciplines by publication volume (Table 2 ), which include Medical Informatics (75 articles, 15.00%), Health Care Sciences & Services (71 articles, 14.20%), Gerontology (61 articles, 12.20%), Public Environmental & Occupational Health (57 articles, 11.40%), and Geriatrics & Gerontology (52 articles, 10.40%), among others. The high output in these disciplines reflects the concentrated global academic interest in this comprehensive research topic. Additionally, interdisciplinary research approaches provide diverse perspectives and a solid theoretical foundation for studies on older adults’ technology acceptance, also paving the way for new research directions.

Knowledge flow analysis

A dual-map overlay is a CiteSpace map superimposed on top of a base map, which shows the interrelationships between journals in different domains, representing the publication and citation activities in each domain (Chen and Leydesdorff 2014 ). The overlay map reveals the link between the citing domain (on the left side) and the cited domain (on the right side), reflecting the knowledge flow of the discipline at the journal level (Leydesdorff and Rafols 2012 ). We utilize the in-built Z-score algorithm of the software to cluster the graph, as shown in Fig. 3 .

The left side shows the citing journal, and the right side shows the cited journal.

Figure 3 shows the distribution of citing journals clusters for older adults’ technology acceptance on the left side, while the right side refers to the main cited journals clusters. Two knowledge flow citation trajectories were obtained; they are presented by the color of the cited regions, and the thickness of these trajectories is proportional to the Z-score scaled frequency of citations (Chen et al. 2014 ). Within the cited regions, the most popular fields with the most records covered are “HEALTH, NURSING, MEDICINE” and “PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, SOCIAL”, and the elliptical aspect ratio of these two fields stands out. Fields have prominent elliptical aspect ratios, highlighting their significant influence on older adults’ technology acceptance research. Additionally, the major citation trajectories originate in these two areas and progress to the frontier research area of “PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, HEALTH”. It is worth noting that the citation trajectory from “PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, SOCIAL” has a significant Z-value (z = 6.81), emphasizing the significance and impact of this development path. In the future, “MATHEMATICS, SYSTEMS, MATHEMATICAL”, “MOLECULAR, BIOLOGY, IMMUNOLOGY”, and “NEUROLOGY, SPORTS, OPHTHALMOLOGY” may become emerging fields. The fields of “MEDICINE, MEDICAL, CLINICAL” may be emerging areas of cutting-edge research.

Main research journals analysis

Table 3 provides statistics for the top ten journals by publication volume in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance. Together, these journals have published 137 articles, accounting for 27.40% of the total publications, indicating that there is no highly concentrated core group of journals in this field, with publications being relatively dispersed. Notably, Computers in Human Behavior , Journal of Medical Internet Research , and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction each lead with 15 publications. In terms of citation metrics, International Journal of Medical Informatics and Computers in Human Behavior stand out significantly, with the former accumulating a total of 1,904 citations, averaging 211.56 citations per article, and the latter totaling 1,449 citations, with an average of 96.60 citations per article. These figures emphasize the academic authority and widespread impact of these journals within the research field.

Research power (RQ2)

Countries and collaborations analysis.

The analysis revealed the global research pattern for country distribution and collaboration (Chen et al. 2019 ). Figure 4A shows the network of national collaborations on older adults’ technology acceptance research. The size of the bubbles represents the amount of publications in each country, while the thickness of the connecting lines expresses the closeness of the collaboration among countries. Generally, this research subject has received extensive international attention, with China and the USA publishing far more than any other countries. China has established notable research collaborations with the USA, UK and Malaysia in this field, while other countries have collaborations, but the closeness is relatively low and scattered. Figure 4B shows the annual publication volume dynamics of the top ten countries in terms of total publications. Since 2017, China has consistently increased its annual publications, while the USA has remained relatively stable. In 2019, the volume of publications in each country increased significantly, this was largely due to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to increased reliance on information technology among the elderly for medical consultations, online socialization, and health management (Sinha et al. 2021 ). This phenomenon has led to research advances in technology acceptance among older adults in various countries. Table 4 shows that the top ten countries account for 93.20% of the total cumulative number of publications, with each country having published more than 20 papers. Among these ten countries, all of them except China are developed countries, indicating that the research field of older adults’ technology acceptance has received general attention from developed countries. Currently, China and the USA were the leading countries in terms of publications with 111 and 104 respectively, accounting for 22.20% and 20.80%. The UK, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands also made significant contributions. The USA and China ranked first and second in terms of the number of citations, while the Netherlands had the highest average citations, indicating the high impact and quality of its research. The UK has shown outstanding performance in international cooperation, while the USA highlights its significant academic influence in this field with the highest h-index value.

A National collaboration network. B Annual volume of publications in the top 10 countries.

Institutions and authors analysis

Analyzing the number of publications and citations can reveal an institution’s or author’s research strength and influence in a particular research area (Kwiek 2021 ). Tables 5 and 6 show the statistics of the institutions and authors whose publication counts are in the top ten, respectively. As shown in Table 5 , higher education institutions hold the main position in this research field. Among the top ten institutions, City University of Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong from China lead with 14 and 9 publications, respectively. City University of Hong Kong has the highest h-index, highlighting its significant influence in the field. It is worth noting that Tilburg University in the Netherlands is not among the top five in terms of publications, but the high average citation count (130.14) of its literature demonstrates the high quality of its research.

After analyzing the authors’ output using Price’s Law (Redner 1998 ), the highest number of publications among the authors counted ( n  = 10) defines a publication threshold of 3 for core authors in this research area. As a result of quantitative screening, a total of 63 core authors were identified. Table 6 shows that Chen from Zhejiang University, China, Ziefle from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and Rogers from Macquarie University, Australia, were the top three authors in terms of the number of publications, with 10, 9, and 8 articles, respectively. In terms of average citation rate, Peek and Wouters, both scholars from the Netherlands, have significantly higher rates than other scholars, with 183.2 and 152.67 respectively. This suggests that their research is of high quality and widely recognized. Additionally, Chen and Rogers have high h-indices in this field.

Knowledge base and theme progress (RQ3)

Research knowledge base.

Co-citation relationships occur when two documents are cited together (Zhang and Zhu 2022 ). Co-citation mapping uses references as nodes to represent the knowledge base of a subject area (Min et al. 2021). Figure 5A illustrates co-occurrence mapping in older adults’ technology acceptance research, where larger nodes signify higher co-citation frequencies. Co-citation cluster analysis can be used to explore knowledge structure and research boundaries (Hota et al. 2020 ; Shiau et al. 2023 ). The co-citation clustering mapping of older adults’ technology acceptance research literature (Fig. 5B ) shows that the Q value of the clustering result is 0.8129 (>0.3), and the average value of the weight S is 0.9391 (>0.7), indicating that the clusters are uniformly distributed with a significant and credible structure. This further proves that the boundaries of the research field are clear and there is significant differentiation in the field. The figure features 18 cluster labels, each associated with thematic color blocks corresponding to different time slices. Highlighted emerging research themes include #2 Smart Home Technology, #7 Social Live, and #10 Customer Service. Furthermore, the clustering labels extracted are primarily classified into three categories: theoretical model deepening, emerging technology applications, research methods and evaluation, as detailed in Table 7 .

A Co-citation analysis of references. B Clustering network analysis of references.

Seminal literature analysis

The top ten nodes in terms of co-citation frequency were selected for further analysis. Table 8 displays the corresponding node information. Studies were categorized into four main groups based on content analysis. (1) Research focusing on specific technology usage by older adults includes studies by Peek et al. ( 2014 ), Ma et al. ( 2016 ), Hoque and Sorwar ( 2017 ), and Li et al. ( 2019 ), who investigated the factors influencing the use of e-technology, smartphones, mHealth, and smart wearables, respectively. (2) Concerning the development of theoretical models of technology acceptance, Chen and Chan ( 2014 ) introduced the Senior Technology Acceptance Model (STAM), and Macedo ( 2017 ) analyzed the predictive power of UTAUT2 in explaining older adults’ intentional behaviors and information technology usage. (3) In exploring older adults’ information technology adoption and behavior, Lee and Coughlin ( 2015 ) emphasized that the adoption of technology by older adults is a multifactorial process that includes performance, price, value, usability, affordability, accessibility, technical support, social support, emotion, independence, experience, and confidence. Yusif et al. ( 2016 ) conducted a literature review examining the key barriers affecting older adults’ adoption of assistive technology, including factors such as privacy, trust, functionality/added value, cost, and stigma. (4) From the perspective of research into older adults’ technology acceptance, Mitzner et al. ( 2019 ) assessed the long-term usage of computer systems designed for the elderly, whereas Guner and Acarturk ( 2020 ) compared information technology usage and acceptance between older and younger adults. The breadth and prevalence of this literature make it a vital reference for researchers in the field, also providing new perspectives and inspiration for future research directions.

Research thematic progress

Burst citation is a node of literature that guides the sudden change in dosage, which usually represents a prominent development or major change in a particular field, with innovative and forward-looking qualities. By analyzing the emergent literature, it is often easy to understand the dynamics of the subject area, mapping the emerging thematic change (Chen et al. 2022 ). Figure 6 shows the burst citation mapping in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance research, with burst citations represented by red nodes (Fig. 6A ). For the ten papers with the highest burst intensity (Fig. 6B ), this study will conduct further analysis in conjunction with literature review.

A Burst detection of co-citation. B The top 10 references with the strongest citation bursts.

As shown in Fig. 6 , Mitzner et al. ( 2010 ) broke the stereotype that older adults are fearful of technology, found that they actually have positive attitudes toward technology, and emphasized the centrality of ease of use and usefulness in the process of technology acceptance. This finding provides an important foundation for subsequent research. During the same period, Wagner et al. ( 2010 ) conducted theory-deepening and applied research on technology acceptance among older adults. The research focused on older adults’ interactions with computers from the perspective of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). This expanded the understanding of technology acceptance, particularly regarding the relationship between behavior, environment, and other SCT elements. In addition, Pan and Jordan-Marsh ( 2010 ) extended the TAM to examine the interactions among predictors of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, and convenience conditions when older adults use the Internet, taking into account the moderating roles of gender and age. Heerink et al. ( 2010 ) adapted and extended the UTAUT, constructed a technology acceptance model specifically designed for older users’ acceptance of assistive social agents, and validated it using controlled experiments and longitudinal data, explaining intention to use by combining functional assessment and social interaction variables.

Then the research theme shifted to an in-depth analysis of the factors influencing technology acceptance among older adults. Two papers with high burst strengths emerged during this period: Peek et al. ( 2014 ) (Strength = 12.04), Chen and Chan ( 2014 ) (Strength = 9.81). Through a systematic literature review and empirical study, Peek STM and Chen K, among others, identified multidimensional factors that influence older adults’ technology acceptance. Peek et al. ( 2014 ) analyzed literature on the acceptance of in-home care technology among older adults and identified six factors that influence their acceptance: concerns about technology, expected benefits, technology needs, technology alternatives, social influences, and older adult characteristics, with a focus on differences between pre- and post-implementation factors. Chen and Chan ( 2014 ) constructed the STAM by administering a questionnaire to 1012 older adults and adding eight important factors, including technology anxiety, self-efficacy, cognitive ability, and physical function, based on the TAM. This enriches the theoretical foundation of the field. In addition, Braun ( 2013 ) highlighted the role of perceived usefulness, trust in social networks, and frequency of Internet use in older adults’ use of social networks, while ease of use and social pressure were not significant influences. These findings contribute to the study of older adults’ technology acceptance within specific technology application domains.

Recent research has focused on empirical studies of personal factors and emerging technologies. Ma et al. ( 2016 ) identified key personal factors affecting smartphone acceptance among older adults through structured questionnaires and face-to-face interviews with 120 participants. The study found that cost, self-satisfaction, and convenience were important factors influencing perceived usefulness and ease of use. This study offers empirical evidence to comprehend the main factors that drive smartphone acceptance among Chinese older adults. Additionally, Yusif et al. ( 2016 ) presented an overview of the obstacles that hinder older adults’ acceptance of assistive technologies, focusing on privacy, trust, and functionality.

In summary, research on older adults’ technology acceptance has shifted from early theoretical deepening and analysis of influencing factors to empirical studies in the areas of personal factors and emerging technologies, which have greatly enriched the theoretical basis of older adults’ technology acceptance and provided practical guidance for the design of emerging technology products.

Research hotspots, evolutionary trends, and quality distribution (RQ4)

Core keywords analysis.

Keywords concise the main idea and core of the literature, and are a refined summary of the research content (Huang et al. 2021 ). In CiteSpace, nodes with a centrality value greater than 0.1 are considered to be critical nodes. Analyzing keywords with high frequency and centrality helps to visualize the hot topics in the research field (Park et al. 2018 ). The merged keywords were imported into CiteSpace, and the top 10 keywords were counted and sorted by frequency and centrality respectively, as shown in Table 9 . The results show that the keyword “TAM” has the highest frequency (92), followed by “UTAUT” (24), which reflects that the in-depth study of the existing technology acceptance model and its theoretical expansion occupy a central position in research related to older adults’ technology acceptance. Furthermore, the terms ‘assistive technology’ and ‘virtual reality’ are both high-frequency and high-centrality terms (frequency = 17, centrality = 0.10), indicating that the research on assistive technology and virtual reality for older adults is the focus of current academic attention.

Research hotspots analysis

Using VOSviewer for keyword co-occurrence analysis organizes keywords into groups or clusters based on their intrinsic connections and frequencies, clearly highlighting the research field’s hot topics. The connectivity among keywords reveals correlations between different topics. To ensure accuracy, the analysis only considered the authors’ keywords. Subsequently, the keywords were filtered by setting the keyword frequency to 5 to obtain the keyword clustering map of the research on older adults’ technology acceptance research keyword clustering mapping (Fig. 7 ), combined with the keyword co-occurrence clustering network (Fig. 7A ) and the corresponding density situation (Fig. 7B ) to make a detailed analysis of the following four groups of clustered themes.

A Co-occurrence clustering network. B Keyword density.

Cluster #1—Research on the factors influencing technology adoption among older adults is a prominent topic, covering age, gender, self-efficacy, attitude, and and intention to use (Berkowsky et al. 2017 ; Wang et al. 2017 ). It also examined older adults’ attitudes towards and acceptance of digital health technologies (Ahmad and Mozelius, 2022 ). Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic, significantly impacting older adults’ technology attitudes and usage, has underscored the study’s importance and urgency. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct in-depth studies on how older adults accept, adopt, and effectively use new technologies, to address their needs and help them overcome the digital divide within digital inclusion. This will improve their quality of life and healthcare experiences.

Cluster #2—Research focuses on how older adults interact with assistive technologies, especially assistive robots and health monitoring devices, emphasizing trust, usability, and user experience as crucial factors (Halim et al. 2022 ). Moreover, health monitoring technologies effectively track and manage health issues common in older adults, like dementia and mild cognitive impairment (Lussier et al. 2018 ; Piau et al. 2019 ). Interactive exercise games and virtual reality have been deployed to encourage more physical and cognitive engagement among older adults (Campo-Prieto et al. 2021 ). Personalized and innovative technology significantly enhances older adults’ participation, improving their health and well-being.

Cluster #3—Optimizing health management for older adults using mobile technology. With the development of mobile health (mHealth) and health information technology, mobile applications, smartphones, and smart wearable devices have become effective tools to help older users better manage chronic conditions, conduct real-time health monitoring, and even receive telehealth services (Dupuis and Tsotsos 2018 ; Olmedo-Aguirre et al. 2022 ; Kim et al. 2014 ). Additionally, these technologies can mitigate the problem of healthcare resource inequality, especially in developing countries. Older adults’ acceptance and use of these technologies are significantly influenced by their behavioral intentions, motivational factors, and self-management skills. These internal motivational factors, along with external factors, jointly affect older adults’ performance in health management and quality of life.

Cluster #4—Research on technology-assisted home care for older adults is gaining popularity. Environmentally assisted living enhances older adults’ independence and comfort at home, offering essential support and security. This has a crucial impact on promoting healthy aging (Friesen et al. 2016 ; Wahlroos et al. 2023 ). The smart home is a core application in this field, providing a range of solutions that facilitate independent living for the elderly in a highly integrated and user-friendly manner. This fulfills different dimensions of living and health needs (Majumder et al. 2017 ). Moreover, eHealth offers accurate and personalized health management and healthcare services for older adults (Delmastro et al. 2018 ), ensuring their needs are met at home. Research in this field often employs qualitative methods and structural equation modeling to fully understand older adults’ needs and experiences at home and analyze factors influencing technology adoption.

Evolutionary trends analysis

To gain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary trends in research hotspots within the field of older adults’ technology acceptance, we conducted a statistical analysis of the average appearance times of keywords, using CiteSpace to generate the time-zone evolution mapping (Fig. 8 ) and burst keywords. The time-zone mapping visually displays the evolution of keywords over time, intuitively reflecting the frequency and initial appearance of keywords in research, commonly used to identify trends in research topics (Jing et al. 2024a ; Kumar et al. 2021 ). Table 10 lists the top 15 keywords by burst strength, with the red sections indicating high-frequency citations and their burst strength in specific years. These burst keywords reveal the focus and trends of research themes over different periods (Kleinberg 2002 ). Combining insights from the time-zone mapping and burst keywords provides more objective and accurate research insights (Wang et al. 2023b ).

Reflecting the frequency and time of first appearance of keywords in the study.

An integrated analysis of Fig. 8 and Table 10 shows that early research on older adults’ technology acceptance primarily focused on factors such as perceived usefulness, ease of use, and attitudes towards information technology, including their use of computers and the internet (Pan and Jordan-Marsh 2010 ), as well as differences in technology use between older adults and other age groups (Guner and Acarturk 2020 ). Subsequently, the research focus expanded to improving the quality of life for older adults, exploring how technology can optimize health management and enhance the possibility of independent living, emphasizing the significant role of technology in improving the quality of life for the elderly. With ongoing technological advancements, recent research has shifted towards areas such as “virtual reality,” “telehealth,” and “human-robot interaction,” with a focus on the user experience of older adults (Halim et al. 2022 ). The appearance of keywords such as “physical activity” and “exercise” highlights the value of technology in promoting physical activity and health among older adults. This phase of research tends to make cutting-edge technology genuinely serve the practical needs of older adults, achieving its widespread application in daily life. Additionally, research has focused on expanding and quantifying theoretical models of older adults’ technology acceptance, involving keywords such as “perceived risk”, “validation” and “UTAUT”.

In summary, from 2013 to 2023, the field of older adults’ technology acceptance has evolved from initial explorations of influencing factors, to comprehensive enhancements in quality of life and health management, and further to the application and deepening of theoretical models and cutting-edge technologies. This research not only reflects the diversity and complexity of the field but also demonstrates a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of older adults’ interactions with technology across various life scenarios and needs.

Research quality distribution

To reveal the distribution of research quality in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance, a strategic diagram analysis is employed to calculate and illustrate the internal development and interrelationships among various research themes (Xie et al. 2020 ). The strategic diagram uses Centrality as the X-axis and Density as the Y-axis to divide into four quadrants, where the X-axis represents the strength of the connection between thematic clusters and other themes, with higher values indicating a central position in the research field; the Y-axis indicates the level of development within the thematic clusters, with higher values denoting a more mature and widely recognized field (Li and Zhou 2020 ).

Through cluster analysis and manual verification, this study categorized 61 core keywords (Frequency ≥5) into 11 thematic clusters. Subsequently, based on the keywords covered by each thematic cluster, the research themes and their directions for each cluster were summarized (Table 11 ), and the centrality and density coordinates for each cluster were precisely calculated (Table 12 ). Finally, a strategic diagram of the older adults’ technology acceptance research field was constructed (Fig. 9 ). Based on the distribution of thematic clusters across the quadrants in the strategic diagram, the structure and developmental trends of the field were interpreted.

Classification and visualization of theme clusters based on density and centrality.

As illustrated in Fig. 9 , (1) the theme clusters of #3 Usage Experience and #4 Assisted Living Technology are in the first quadrant, characterized by high centrality and density. Their internal cohesion and close links with other themes indicate their mature development, systematic research content or directions have been formed, and they have a significant influence on other themes. These themes play a central role in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance and have promising prospects. (2) The theme clusters of #6 Smart Devices, #9 Theoretical Models, and #10 Mobile Health Applications are in the second quadrant, with higher density but lower centrality. These themes have strong internal connections but weaker external links, indicating that these three themes have received widespread attention from researchers and have been the subject of related research, but more as self-contained systems and exhibit independence. Therefore, future research should further explore in-depth cooperation and cross-application with other themes. (3) The theme clusters of #7 Human-Robot Interaction, #8 Characteristics of the Elderly, and #11 Research Methods are in the third quadrant, with lower centrality and density. These themes are loosely connected internally and have weak links with others, indicating their developmental immaturity. Compared to other topics, they belong to the lower attention edge and niche themes, and there is a need for further investigation. (4) The theme clusters of #1 Digital Healthcare Technology, #2 Psychological Factors, and #5 Socio-Cultural Factors are located in the fourth quadrant, with high centrality but low density. Although closely associated with other research themes, the internal cohesion within these clusters is relatively weak. This suggests that while these themes are closely linked to other research areas, their own development remains underdeveloped, indicating a core immaturity. Nevertheless, these themes are crucial within the research domain of elderly technology acceptance and possess significant potential for future exploration.

Discussion on distribution power (RQ1)

Over the past decade, academic interest and influence in the area of older adults’ technology acceptance have significantly increased. This trend is evidenced by a quantitative analysis of publication and citation volumes, particularly noticeable in 2019 and 2022, where there was a substantial rise in both metrics. The rise is closely linked to the widespread adoption of emerging technologies such as smart homes, wearable devices, and telemedicine among older adults. While these technologies have enhanced their quality of life, they also pose numerous challenges, sparking extensive research into their acceptance, usage behaviors, and influencing factors among the older adults (Pirzada et al. 2022 ; Garcia Reyes et al. 2023 ). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in technology demand among older adults, especially in areas like medical consultation, online socialization, and health management, further highlighting the importance and challenges of technology. Health risks and social isolation have compelled older adults to rely on technology for daily activities, accelerating its adoption and application within this demographic. This phenomenon has made technology acceptance a critical issue, driving societal and academic focus on the study of technology acceptance among older adults.

The flow of knowledge at the level of high-output disciplines and journals, along with the primary publishing outlets, indicates the highly interdisciplinary nature of research into older adults’ technology acceptance. This reflects the complexity and breadth of issues related to older adults’ technology acceptance, necessitating the integration of multidisciplinary knowledge and approaches. Currently, research is primarily focused on medical health and human-computer interaction, demonstrating academic interest in improving health and quality of life for older adults and addressing the urgent needs related to their interactions with technology. In the field of medical health, research aims to provide advanced and innovative healthcare technologies and services to meet the challenges of an aging population while improving the quality of life for older adults (Abdi et al. 2020 ; Wilson et al. 2021 ). In the field of human-computer interaction, research is focused on developing smarter and more user-friendly interaction models to meet the needs of older adults in the digital age, enabling them to actively participate in social activities and enjoy a higher quality of life (Sayago, 2019 ). These studies are crucial for addressing the challenges faced by aging societies, providing increased support and opportunities for the health, welfare, and social participation of older adults.

Discussion on research power (RQ2)

This study analyzes leading countries and collaboration networks, core institutions and authors, revealing the global research landscape and distribution of research strength in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance, and presents quantitative data on global research trends. From the analysis of country distribution and collaborations, China and the USA hold dominant positions in this field, with developed countries like the UK, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands also excelling in international cooperation and research influence. The significant investment in technological research and the focus on the technological needs of older adults by many developed countries reflect their rapidly aging societies, policy support, and resource allocation.

China is the only developing country that has become a major contributor in this field, indicating its growing research capabilities and high priority given to aging societies and technological innovation. Additionally, China has close collaborations with countries such as USA, the UK, and Malaysia, driven not only by technological research needs but also by shared challenges and complementarities in aging issues among these nations. For instance, the UK has extensive experience in social welfare and aging research, providing valuable theoretical guidance and practical experience. International collaborations, aimed at addressing the challenges of aging, integrate the strengths of various countries, advancing in-depth and widespread development in the research of technology acceptance among older adults.

At the institutional and author level, City University of Hong Kong leads in publication volume, with research teams led by Chan and Chen demonstrating significant academic activity and contributions. Their research primarily focuses on older adults’ acceptance and usage behaviors of various technologies, including smartphones, smart wearables, and social robots (Chen et al. 2015 ; Li et al. 2019 ; Ma et al. 2016 ). These studies, targeting specific needs and product characteristics of older adults, have developed new models of technology acceptance based on existing frameworks, enhancing the integration of these technologies into their daily lives and laying a foundation for further advancements in the field. Although Tilburg University has a smaller publication output, it holds significant influence in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance. Particularly, the high citation rate of Peek’s studies highlights their excellence in research. Peek extensively explored older adults’ acceptance and usage of home care technologies, revealing the complexity and dynamics of their technology use behaviors. His research spans from identifying systemic influencing factors (Peek et al. 2014 ; Peek et al. 2016 ), emphasizing familial impacts (Luijkx et al. 2015 ), to constructing comprehensive models (Peek et al. 2017 ), and examining the dynamics of long-term usage (Peek et al. 2019 ), fully reflecting the evolving technology landscape and the changing needs of older adults. Additionally, the ongoing contributions of researchers like Ziefle, Rogers, and Wouters in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance demonstrate their research influence and leadership. These researchers have significantly enriched the knowledge base in this area with their diverse perspectives. For instance, Ziefle has uncovered the complex attitudes of older adults towards technology usage, especially the trade-offs between privacy and security, and how different types of activities affect their privacy needs (Maidhof et al. 2023 ; Mujirishvili et al. 2023 ; Schomakers and Ziefle 2023 ; Wilkowska et al. 2022 ), reflecting a deep exploration and ongoing innovation in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance.

Discussion on knowledge base and thematic progress (RQ3)

Through co-citation analysis and systematic review of seminal literature, this study reveals the knowledge foundation and thematic progress in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance. Co-citation networks and cluster analyses illustrate the structural themes of the research, delineating the differentiation and boundaries within this field. Additionally, burst detection analysis offers a valuable perspective for understanding the thematic evolution in the field of technology acceptance among older adults. The development and innovation of theoretical models are foundational to this research. Researchers enhance the explanatory power of constructed models by deepening and expanding existing technology acceptance theories to address theoretical limitations. For instance, Heerink et al. ( 2010 ) modified and expanded the UTAUT model by integrating functional assessment and social interaction variables to create the almere model. This model significantly enhances the ability to explain the intentions of older users in utilizing assistive social agents and improves the explanation of actual usage behaviors. Additionally, Chen and Chan ( 2014 ) extended the TAM to include age-related health and capability features of older adults, creating the STAM, which substantially improves predictions of older adults’ technology usage behaviors. Personal attributes, health and capability features, and facilitating conditions have a direct impact on technology acceptance. These factors more effectively predict older adults’ technology usage behaviors than traditional attitudinal factors.

With the advancement of technology and the application of emerging technologies, new research topics have emerged, increasingly focusing on older adults’ acceptance and use of these technologies. Prior to this, the study by Mitzner et al. ( 2010 ) challenged the stereotype of older adults’ conservative attitudes towards technology, highlighting the central roles of usability and usefulness in the technology acceptance process. This discovery laid an important foundation for subsequent research. Research fields such as “smart home technology,” “social life,” and “customer service” are emerging, indicating a shift in focus towards the practical and social applications of technology in older adults’ lives. Research not only focuses on the technology itself but also on how these technologies integrate into older adults’ daily lives and how they can improve the quality of life through technology. For instance, studies such as those by Ma et al. ( 2016 ), Hoque and Sorwar ( 2017 ), and Li et al. ( 2019 ) have explored factors influencing older adults’ use of smartphones, mHealth, and smart wearable devices.

Furthermore, the diversification of research methodologies and innovation in evaluation techniques, such as the use of mixed methods, structural equation modeling (SEM), and neural network (NN) approaches, have enhanced the rigor and reliability of the findings, enabling more precise identification of the factors and mechanisms influencing technology acceptance. Talukder et al. ( 2020 ) employed an effective multimethodological strategy by integrating SEM and NN to leverage the complementary strengths of both approaches, thus overcoming their individual limitations and more accurately analyzing and predicting older adults’ acceptance of wearable health technologies (WHT). SEM is utilized to assess the determinants’ impact on the adoption of WHT, while neural network models validate SEM outcomes and predict the significance of key determinants. This combined approach not only boosts the models’ reliability and explanatory power but also provides a nuanced understanding of the motivations and barriers behind older adults’ acceptance of WHT, offering deep research insights.

Overall, co-citation analysis of the literature in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance has uncovered deeper theoretical modeling and empirical studies on emerging technologies, while emphasizing the importance of research methodological and evaluation innovations in understanding complex social science issues. These findings are crucial for guiding the design and marketing strategies of future technology products, especially in the rapidly growing market of older adults.

Discussion on research hotspots and evolutionary trends (RQ4)

By analyzing core keywords, we can gain deep insights into the hot topics, evolutionary trends, and quality distribution of research in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance. The frequent occurrence of the keywords “TAM” and “UTAUT” indicates that the applicability and theoretical extension of existing technology acceptance models among older adults remain a focal point in academia. This phenomenon underscores the enduring influence of the studies by Davis ( 1989 ) and Venkatesh et al. ( 2003 ), whose models provide a robust theoretical framework for explaining and predicting older adults’ acceptance and usage of emerging technologies. With the widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies, these theoretical models have incorporated new variables such as perceived risk, trust, and privacy issues (Amin et al. 2024 ; Chen et al. 2024 ; Jing et al. 2024b ; Seibert et al. 2021 ; Wang et al. 2024b ), advancing the theoretical depth and empirical research in this field.

Keyword co-occurrence cluster analysis has revealed multiple research hotspots in the field, including factors influencing technology adoption, interactive experiences between older adults and assistive technologies, the application of mobile health technology in health management, and technology-assisted home care. These studies primarily focus on enhancing the quality of life and health management of older adults through emerging technologies, particularly in the areas of ambient assisted living, smart health monitoring, and intelligent medical care. In these domains, the role of AI technology is increasingly significant (Qian et al. 2021 ; Ho 2020 ). With the evolution of next-generation information technologies, AI is increasingly integrated into elder care systems, offering intelligent, efficient, and personalized service solutions by analyzing the lifestyles and health conditions of older adults. This integration aims to enhance older adults’ quality of life in aspects such as health monitoring and alerts, rehabilitation assistance, daily health management, and emotional support (Lee et al. 2023 ). A survey indicates that 83% of older adults prefer AI-driven solutions when selecting smart products, demonstrating the increasing acceptance of AI in elder care (Zhao and Li 2024 ). Integrating AI into elder care presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly in terms of user acceptance, trust, and long-term usage effects, which warrant further exploration (Mhlanga 2023 ). These studies will help better understand the profound impact of AI technology on the lifestyles of older adults and provide critical references for optimizing AI-driven elder care services.

The Time-zone evolution mapping and burst keyword analysis further reveal the evolutionary trends of research hotspots. Early studies focused on basic technology acceptance models and user perceptions, later expanding to include quality of life and health management. In recent years, research has increasingly focused on cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality, telehealth, and human-robot interaction, with a concurrent emphasis on the user experience of older adults. This evolutionary process demonstrates a deepening shift from theoretical models to practical applications, underscoring the significant role of technology in enhancing the quality of life for older adults. Furthermore, the strategic coordinate mapping analysis clearly demonstrates the development and mutual influence of different research themes. High centrality and density in the themes of Usage Experience and Assisted Living Technology indicate their mature research status and significant impact on other themes. The themes of Smart Devices, Theoretical Models, and Mobile Health Applications demonstrate self-contained research trends. The themes of Human-Robot Interaction, Characteristics of the Elderly, and Research Methods are not yet mature, but they hold potential for development. Themes of Digital Healthcare Technology, Psychological Factors, and Socio-Cultural Factors are closely related to other themes, displaying core immaturity but significant potential.

In summary, the research hotspots in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance are diverse and dynamic, demonstrating the academic community’s profound understanding of how older adults interact with technology across various life contexts and needs. Under the influence of AI and big data, research should continue to focus on the application of emerging technologies among older adults, exploring in depth how they adapt to and effectively use these technologies. This not only enhances the quality of life and healthcare experiences for older adults but also drives ongoing innovation and development in this field.

Research agenda

Based on the above research findings, to further understand and promote technology acceptance and usage among older adults, we recommend future studies focus on refining theoretical models, exploring long-term usage, and assessing user experience in the following detailed aspects:

Refinement and validation of specific technology acceptance models for older adults: Future research should focus on developing and validating technology acceptance models based on individual characteristics, particularly considering variations in technology acceptance among older adults across different educational levels and cultural backgrounds. This includes factors such as age, gender, educational background, and cultural differences. Additionally, research should examine how well specific technologies, such as wearable devices and mobile health applications, meet the needs of older adults. Building on existing theoretical models, this research should integrate insights from multiple disciplines such as psychology, sociology, design, and engineering through interdisciplinary collaboration to create more accurate and comprehensive models, which should then be validated in relevant contexts.

Deepening the exploration of the relationship between long-term technology use and quality of life among older adults: The acceptance and use of technology by users is a complex and dynamic process (Seuwou et al. 2016 ). Existing research predominantly focuses on older adults’ initial acceptance or short-term use of new technologies; however, the impact of long-term use on their quality of life and health is more significant. Future research should focus on the evolution of older adults’ experiences and needs during long-term technology usage, and the enduring effects of technology on their social interactions, mental health, and life satisfaction. Through longitudinal studies and qualitative analysis, this research reveals the specific needs and challenges of older adults in long-term technology use, providing a basis for developing technologies and strategies that better meet their requirements. This understanding aids in comprehensively assessing the impact of technology on older adults’ quality of life and guiding the optimization and improvement of technological products.

Evaluating the Importance of User Experience in Research on Older Adults’ Technology Acceptance: Understanding the mechanisms of information technology acceptance and use is central to human-computer interaction research. Although technology acceptance models and user experience models differ in objectives, they share many potential intersections. Technology acceptance research focuses on structured prediction and assessment, while user experience research concentrates on interpreting design impacts and new frameworks. Integrating user experience to assess older adults’ acceptance of technology products and systems is crucial (Codfrey et al. 2022 ; Wang et al. 2019 ), particularly for older users, where specific product designs should emphasize practicality and usability (Fisk et al. 2020 ). Researchers need to explore innovative age-appropriate design methods to enhance older adults’ usage experience. This includes studying older users’ actual usage preferences and behaviors, optimizing user interfaces, and interaction designs. Integrating feedback from older adults to tailor products to their needs can further promote their acceptance and continued use of technology products.

Conclusions

This study conducted a systematic review of the literature on older adults’ technology acceptance over the past decade through bibliometric analysis, focusing on the distribution power, research power, knowledge base and theme progress, research hotspots, evolutionary trends, and quality distribution. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, this study has reached the following conclusions:

Technology acceptance among older adults has become a hot topic in the international academic community, involving the integration of knowledge across multiple disciplines, including Medical Informatics, Health Care Sciences Services, and Ergonomics. In terms of journals, “PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATION, HEALTH” represents a leading field, with key publications including Computers in Human Behavior , Journal of Medical Internet Research , and International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction . These journals possess significant academic authority and extensive influence in the field.

Research on technology acceptance among older adults is particularly active in developed countries, with China and USA publishing significantly more than other nations. The Netherlands leads in high average citation rates, indicating the depth and impact of its research. Meanwhile, the UK stands out in terms of international collaboration. At the institutional level, City University of Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong in China are in leading positions. Tilburg University in the Netherlands demonstrates exceptional research quality through its high average citation count. At the author level, Chen from China has the highest number of publications, while Peek from the Netherlands has the highest average citation count.

Co-citation analysis of references indicates that the knowledge base in this field is divided into three main categories: theoretical model deepening, emerging technology applications, and research methods and evaluation. Seminal literature focuses on four areas: specific technology use by older adults, expansion of theoretical models of technology acceptance, information technology adoption behavior, and research perspectives. Research themes have evolved from initial theoretical deepening and analysis of influencing factors to empirical studies on individual factors and emerging technologies.

Keyword analysis indicates that TAM and UTAUT are the most frequently occurring terms, while “assistive technology” and “virtual reality” are focal points with high frequency and centrality. Keyword clustering analysis reveals that research hotspots are concentrated on the influencing factors of technology adoption, human-robot interaction experiences, mobile health management, and technology for aging in place. Time-zone evolution mapping and burst keyword analysis have revealed the research evolution from preliminary exploration of influencing factors, to enhancements in quality of life and health management, and onto advanced technology applications and deepening of theoretical models. Furthermore, analysis of research quality distribution indicates that Usage Experience and Assisted Living Technology have become core topics, while Smart Devices, Theoretical Models, and Mobile Health Applications point towards future research directions.

Through this study, we have systematically reviewed the dynamics, core issues, and evolutionary trends in the field of older adults’ technology acceptance, constructing a comprehensive Knowledge Mapping of the domain and presenting a clear framework of existing research. This not only lays the foundation for subsequent theoretical discussions and innovative applications in the field but also provides an important reference for relevant scholars.

Limitations

To our knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis concerning technology acceptance among older adults, and we adhered strictly to bibliometric standards throughout our research. However, this study relies on the Web of Science Core Collection, and while its authority and breadth are widely recognized, this choice may have missed relevant literature published in other significant databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar, potentially overlooking some critical academic contributions. Moreover, given that our analysis was confined to literature in English, it may not reflect studies published in other languages, somewhat limiting the global representativeness of our data sample.

It is noteworthy that with the rapid development of AI technology, its increasingly widespread application in elderly care services is significantly transforming traditional care models. AI is profoundly altering the lifestyles of the elderly, from health monitoring and smart diagnostics to intelligent home systems and personalized care, significantly enhancing their quality of life and health care standards. The potential for AI technology within the elderly population is immense, and research in this area is rapidly expanding. However, due to the restrictive nature of the search terms used in this study, it did not fully cover research in this critical area, particularly in addressing key issues such as trust, privacy, and ethics.

Consequently, future research should not only expand data sources, incorporating multilingual and multidatabase literature, but also particularly focus on exploring older adults’ acceptance of AI technology and its applications, in order to construct a more comprehensive academic landscape of older adults’ technology acceptance, thereby enriching and extending the knowledge system and academic trends in this field.

Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/6K0GJH .

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This research was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province in China (Grant No. 2023J014).

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Shang, X., Liu, Z., Gong, C. et al. Knowledge mapping and evolution of research on older adults’ technology acceptance: a bibliometric study from 2013 to 2023. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1115 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03658-2

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Nanostructures enable on-chip lightwave-electronic frequency mixer

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Imagine how a phone call works: Your voice is converted into electronic signals, shifted up to higher frequencies, transmitted over long distances, and then shifted back down so it can be heard clearly on the other end. The process enabling this shifting of signal frequencies is called frequency mixing, and it is essential for communication technologies like radio and Wi-Fi. Frequency mixers are vital components in many electronic devices and typically operate using frequencies that oscillate billions (GHz, gigahertz) to trillions (THz, terahertz) of times per second. 

Now imagine a frequency mixer that works at a quadrillion (PHz, petahertz) times per second — up to a million times faster. This frequency range corresponds to the oscillations of the electric and magnetic fields that make up light waves. Petahertz-frequency mixers would allow us to shift signals up to optical frequencies and then back down to more conventional electronic frequencies, enabling the transmission and processing of vastly larger amounts of information at many times higher speeds. This leap in speed isn’t just about doing things faster; it’s about enabling entirely new capabilities.

Lightwave electronics (or petahertz electronics) is an emerging field that aims to integrate optical and electronic systems at incredibly high speeds, leveraging the ultrafast oscillations of light fields. The key idea is to harness the electric field of light waves, which oscillate on sub-femtosecond (10 -15 seconds) timescales, to directly drive electronic processes. This allows for the processing and manipulation of information at speeds far beyond what is possible with current electronic technologies. In combination with other petahertz electronic circuitry, a petahertz electronic mixer would allow us to process and analyze vast amounts of information in real time and transfer larger amounts of data over the air at unprecedented speeds. The MIT team’s demonstration of a lightwave-electronic mixer at petahertz-scale frequencies is a first step toward making communication technology faster, and progresses research toward developing new, miniaturized lightwave electronic circuitry capable of handling optical signals directly at the nanoscale.

In the 1970s, scientists began exploring ways to extend electronic frequency mixing into the terahertz range using diodes. While these early efforts showed promise, progress stalled for decades. Recently, however, advances in nanotechnology have reignited this area of research. Researchers discovered that tiny structures like nanometer-length-scale needle tips and plasmonic antennas could function similarly to those early diodes but at much higher frequencies.

A recent open-access study published in Science Advances by Matthew Yeung, Lu-Ting Chou, Marco Turchetti, Felix Ritzkowsky, Karl K. Berggren, and Phillip D. Keathley at MIT has demonstrated a significant step forward. They developed an electronic frequency mixer for signal detection that operates beyond 0.350 PHz using tiny nanoantennae. These nanoantennae can mix different frequencies of light, enabling analysis of signals oscillating orders of magnitude faster than the fastest accessible to conventional electronics. Such petahertz electronic devices could enable developments that ultimately revolutionize fields that require precise analysis of extremely fast optical signals, such as spectroscopy and imaging, where capturing femtosecond-scale dynamics is crucial (a femtosecond is one-millionth of one-billionth of a second).

The team’s study highlights the use of nanoantenna networks to create a broadband, on-chip electronic optical frequency mixer. This innovative approach allows for the accurate readout of optical wave forms spanning more than one octave of bandwidth. Importantly, this process worked using a commercial turnkey laser that can be purchased off the shelf, rather than a highly customized laser.

While optical frequency mixing is possible using nonlinear materials, the process is purely optical (that is, it converts light input to light output at a new frequency). Furthermore, the materials have to be many wavelengths in thickness, limiting the device size to the micrometer scale (a micrometer is one-millionth of a meter).  In contrast, the lightwave-electronic method demonstrated by the authors uses a light-driven tunneling mechanism that offers high nonlinearities for frequency mixing and direct electronic output using nanometer-scale devices (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter).

While this study focused on characterizing light pulses of different frequencies, the researchers envision that similar devices will enable one to construct circuits using light waves. This device, with bandwidths spanning multiple octaves, could provide new ways to investigate ultrafast light-matter interactions, accelerating advancements in ultrafast source technologies. 

This work not only pushes the boundaries of what is possible in optical signal processing but also bridges the gap between the fields of electronics and optics. By connecting these two important areas of research, this study paves the way for new technologies and applications in fields like spectroscopy, imaging, and communications, ultimately advancing our ability to explore and manipulate the ultrafast dynamics of light.

The research was initially supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Ongoing research into harmonic mixing is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Matthew Yeung acknowledges fellowship support from MathWorks, the U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, and MPS-Ascend Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. Lu-Ting Chou acknowledges financial support from the China's Ministry of Education for the Overseas Internship Program from the Chinese National Science and Technology Council for the doctoral fellowship program. This work was carried out, in part, through the use of MIT.nano.

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