The world is struggling and dealing with a new pandemic named Coronavirus. Technologies such as the internet of things, IR4.0, artificial intelligence, and social media applications are becoming crucial tools during these tumultuous times to aid humanity in different perspectives. Many industries and people around the world are utilizing these applications to perform daily life operations. Therefore, technological innovations are continuously improving in every sector. For instance, in many hospitals, COVID-19 patients are monitored using the IoT-based networks on a regular basis with the ability to make decisions with the aid of the artificial intelligence. Industrial Revolution 4.0 is another technology that is helping business in current pandemic situation. In current pandemic, internet and 4G networks are playing important roles. These networks demand heavy bandwidth and show new future industries trends. In this chapter, the authors have discussed IoT, IR 4.0, AI, and social media applications' roles and impact on society, usability, and future trend demands.
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IoT is a short form of Internet of Things which was invented in 1999 by Radio Frequency Identification Development Community (RFIDC) (Vermesan & Friess, 2013). Today the world is obstructed and industries are halted because of Covid-19. With the help of Internet technologies, we can access everything with one click using electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops, and smart devices. Therefore, in every country, communication has become a vital source to support country’s economy and development. IoT generally presents an idea of the world’s technical development. Previously, those small Nokia phones made a huge success in the market, and now we are witness of how much the world has evolved digitally. The big smart screens which are just a click away, advanced scientific and medical instruments, home appliances, security monitoring, billing and banking system, all of this has become possible because of smart devices and Internet. IoT technology helps society in different ways in today's pandemic period. IoT usability can be classified into main three areas such as (Vermesan & Friess, 2014):
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Human to Human
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Human to Machine
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Machine to Machine
In today era, Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 is another concept that assists society and industries with state-of-the-art technology. The First Industrial Revolution in 1760 was known as 1.0, and then 2.0 was a revolution in manufacturing. Now we are living with the development of IR 4.0 whose trajectory was expected to rise continuously. However, today things have changed and slowed down because of the unforeseen obstacle of the Covid-19 pandemic (Alaloul et al., 2016).
Technological innovation has improved workflow productivity in all sectors by means of the new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). A IoT network and IR applications used self-optimized networks services. AI make communication among these network more effective and efficient (Tabassum & Mathew, 2014). The key aim of IA is to maximize efficiency in different industries through various algorithms such as machine learning and data analysis (Mathew & Tabassum, 2014).
Social media is one of greatest inventions of this era. It has seen a dramatic rise in usage since the pandemic started; primarily as a result of societal distancing initiatives supported by several governments. Since many people are ordered to sit at home, it had brought them on social media to maintain their communication, social and official duties. This pandemic and social distancing has caused many people to change their habits and placed a burden on their mental health as well (Woo et al., 2016). As a result, numerous professional therapy programs that use social media have emerged, and have started to expand prominently, linking behavioural health professionals with people who need them. Furthermore, several websites and health assurance bodies are publishing Covid-19 information and giving different tips to mankind on how to prevent the virus from spreading and keep themselves and others safe, such as maintaining a distance between themselves and others, using masks and washing their hands. Internet networking acts as an intelligence source for the public now a days. Most individuals may feel loneliness at home, during hospitalization or during quarantining (Woo et al., 2016). Therefore, social networking has become an important source of learning and communicating with people to spend quality time and gain knowledge. The Covid-19 pandemic has heavily influenced the general population, celebrities, world leaders, and practices across the globe to utilize social media. Social networking platforms used Internet messages to distribute information, share entertaining stuff to distract people attention from the pandemic (Chew & Eysenbach, 2010).