Covid-19 sentiments in smart cities: The role of technology anxiety before and during the pandemic

• Published in: Computers in human behavior 2022-01, Vol.126, p.106986-106986, Article 106986
• Main Authors: Troisi, Orlando, Fenza, Giuseppe, Grimaldi, Mara, Loia, Francesca
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Citizen behaviour; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Fuzzy formal concept analysis; New technology; Pandemic; Pandemics; Smart cities; Technology anxiety; Technology utilization
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692; 0747-5632
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2021.106986

The spread of Covid-19 profoundly changed citizens' daily lives due to the introduction of new modes of work and access to services based on smart technologies. Although the relevance of new technologies as strategic levers for crisis resolution has been widely debated before the pandemic, especially in the smart cities' context, how individuals have agreed to include the technological changes dictated by the pandemic in their daily interactions remains an open question. This paper aims at detecting citizens' sentiment toward technology before and after the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic using Fuzzy Formal Concept Analysis (FFCA) to analyze a large corpus of tweets. Specifically, citizens' attitudes in five cities (Berlin, Dublin, London, Milan, and Madrid) were explored to extract and classify the key topics related to the degree of confidence, familiarity and approval of new technologies. The results shed light on the complex technology acceptance process and help managers identify the potential negative effects of smart technologies. In this way, the study enhances scholars' and practitioners' understanding of the strategies for enabling the use of technology within smart cities to manage the transformations introduced by the health emergency and guide citizens’ behaviour. •The paper explores citizen sentiment towards the adoption of technologies to challenge Covid-19 in five international cities.•The tweet analysis identifies the topics associated with technology anxiety before and after the emergence of Covid-19.•Fuzzy Formal Concept Analysis permits to identify the critical factors in Tweeters' use of technology.•Comparing technology anxiety before and after the pandemic reveals useful insights on citizen behaviour.•A framework with the determinants that influence the acceptance of the technological changes imposed by Covid-19 is built.