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Top1. Introduction
This study explores whether smart technologies, e.g., smartphones, internet of things (IoT) platforms, human-machine interactions, and mobile health, help people of typically healthy ages, such as adults of working age, adopt hearing aid devices. They can be summed up as 'hearables' or hearing aids that can reduce hearing difficulties and enhance patients' quality of life (Chisolm et al., 2007; Dalton et al., 2003; Ravneberg and Söderström, 2017). It is estimated that up to 25% of the global population may suffer from hearing loss at some level by the middle of this century (WHO, 2021). However, hearing aid devices make invisible hearing disabilities visible in public (Ellington and Lim, 2013; Van Vliet, 2005). Few studies examine how assistive technologies reinforce the stigma associated with hearing disabilities and reduce such counterproductive effects (David and Werner, 2016; Ruusuvuori et al., 2021).
Technological innovation and development provide consumers with perceived usefulness and greater ease of use, thus changing consumers' behavioral intentions (Davis and Venkatesh, 1996). In hearing aids, we propose that smart technologies provide more information and communication facilities and services, which transforms consumers' behavioral intentions. We are interested in the detailed mechanisms via which smart technologies reshape consumers' perceptions of hearing aid products, which have been extensively investigated using PLS-SEM analysis.
With technological innovation and development, manufacturers have significantly expanded the functions of hearing aids. For example, some hearing aid devices can connect with online healthcare services to enable the user to check hearing abilities and hearing status in real-time (Wright and Keith, 2014). Thus, such smart technologies can improve the quality of life for the urbaner who can access different electronic data collection methods facilitating information communication. Stigma avoidance is another dimension of smart technological innovation. Marti and Recupero (2019) report that smart hearing-aid jewels and avoid stigmatization problems beyond the conventional functionality view. The jewelry system contains hearing aids and mobile phone applications. The hearing aids can be designed to be a variety of fashionable pieces of jewelry like rings, brooches, necklaces, and armbands. Most participants in experimental marketing have given such products high ratings (Marti and Recupero, 2019).