WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY: THE CURRENT STATE OF THE ART

Technology is being more transparent and penetrating into the lives of the human being. We have seen that technology transformed in a form that can be wearable. To refer this transformation, new terms such as “wearable technology, wearable computing, or wearables” have emerged. In this regard, this research examines a total of 1997 studies to identify research patterns and present current state of art on wearable technology studies. For this purpose, the research employs Social Network Analysis (SNA) and quantitative content analysis. The time trend analysis demonstrates that research on wearable technology boomed by 2014. The network visualization findings revealed that wearables are considered as assistive technology. Wearable technology influenced health sector substantially. Usability, user-centered design, privacy and security issues are the challenges that wearable technology should overcome. According to keyword analysis, wearable technology can be examined through the lenses of ubiquitous computing, mobile computing, pervasive computing, or in a broader sense, through the lens of human-computer interaction. Keyword analysis reveals that recognition, monitoring, sensing, and diagnosing are the action words that can be used to define wearable technology.