Toward a Wireless World

The term "wireless world" has been used in the literature to describe a state where wireless mobile communication devices become a dominant part of our working and non-working lives. This article adopts the term "wireless world" to contain all the components of a society where electronic communication no longer depends on the availability of wired connections. To be sure, moving toward a wireless world certainly depends on what technology can give us. But more than technology, a combination of forces influence the direction and speed at which people adopt and use wireless modality. Current literature investigating this area is dominated by technology, and each entity that owns the technology actively pushes for its market adoption and invokes technological determinism to justify its merit. But moving toward a wireless world involves more than technology. It is driven by a confluence of forces and affected by a myriad of issues. What this article intends to do is to survey those driving forces and important issues. In doing so, the article reviews literature in both research- and practitioner-oriented journals and considers the motivation and major issues in studying and moving toward a wireless world. In addition, it explores and categorizes major dependent variables worthy of further study.