Researchers have measured how uncomfortable and 'creeped out' using apps can make us feel:
You would think that feeling chronically uneasy about products would spur a movement away from them. However, this is not the case for apps use. Even though surveys show users to feel emotional stress by the fact that apps collect personal data, we just continue our use.
"It seems that people accept this uneasy feeling almost as a part of the user experience. Somehow, we have been trained to live with being uncomfortable. But you may ask how it can be defensible to treat people and their emotional states so terribly," says Irina Shklovski [...]
"I think most of us have tried feeling uneasy when downloading apps, but most often you can't really put your finger on what the problem might be. So, we decided to create a way of measuring the degree of discomfort," Irina Shklovski says.
The researchers broke down the problem into three. To be creepy, an app needs to a) violate the boundaries of the user; b) do so unexpectedly; and c) possess ambiguity of threat. High scores in all three categories would amount to one very creepy app.
[...] In one regime, the app would collect your location. In another regime, it would soon start to make suggestions on more music from the identified artists. In yet another regime, the app would post on Facebook what you are listening to. Further, some participants were granted control of what the app was doing: they could approve or deny having their music habits displayed at Facebook.
"We had expected the group with control to feel more comfortable, but surprisingly they didn't," Irina Shklovski comments, noting that this is a major discovery:
[...] "We normally assume people who have a high degree of digital literacy to be more critical towards the apps, but again surprisingly, the opposite is true. The more you see yourself as digitally literate, the higher the likeliness of you continuing using an app which is invasive," says Irina Shklovski.
Journal Reference:
John S. Seberger, Irina Shklovski, Emily Swiatek, Sameer Patil. Still Creepy After All These Years: The Normalization of Affective Discomfort in App Use, [open] CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2022 Article No.: 159. (DOI: 10.1145/3491102.3502112)
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday October 09 2022, @01:23PM (8 children)
Yeah, nah.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Sunday October 09 2022, @01:41PM (1 child)
Nah, I could see it.
After all, it doesn't sound like they're correlating with actual expertise, but with self-reported digital literacy. Which means the Dunning-Kruger effect is in full force, and most people believe themselves to be well above average competency.
How many people do you know that consider themselves "computer people" because they can check their email and do other basic tasks without assistance? Even most of the people who end up giving a lot of assistance rather than asking for it are usually still barely scratching the surface of the field.
With actual expertise being fairly rare, the people who have it will be statistical outliers in any study. And would quite possibly self-rank themselves as less literate than a lot of the others do, simply because they are more aware of the vast size of the field, and their relatively small area of expertise.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday October 10 2022, @09:20PM
Yes, they do indeed use perceived data literacy instead of data literacy. I quote from the actual published paper:
What's more, they don't test people actually using apps with different privacy behaviours. They describe scenarios involving such apps and ask people questions about their reactions. This is really no the same.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday October 09 2022, @01:56PM (5 children)
It doesn't appear that the people can't identify the problem. The problem is that they can't for one reason or another kick the habit. They have to have that thing or app, perhaps for social reasons or work reasons or whatnot. So it's not that they don't know why or what it is that is causing it. They do seem clear on that aspect.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Or is the fact that you are a digital addict and you just can't shake or drop your (insert company/app here) habit? Like the fucking addict that you are.
You have somehow decided that you just can't live without whatever app or service there is for one reason and another so you just overcome or is fine with the spying. Sort of like addicts know that whatever shit they smoke, snort or inject isn't exactly healthy or good. But they just can't stop themselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:09PM (4 children)
It's a combinations of addiction, Dunning–Kruger and sunk cost. The marketeers call it brand loyalty.
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(Score: 2) by Ox0000 on Sunday October 09 2022, @08:44PM (3 children)
I think exactly this indeed but even more insidious: it's brand loyalty to their own brand as well. They consider themselves digitally literate, they have identified as an individual using these apps and cannot go back on that state-of-being, regardless of whether or not it is desirable state of things.
In other words, it includes their own brand that they would be violating if they stopped using these apps, it would cut at their own identity.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @09:55PM (2 children)
I'd laugh it off if it didn't hit a bit too close to home. I mean, I don't know when was the last time I played my guitar for more than a couple of minutes. But here it is next to me collecting dust... Never mind my gym membership, my vast collection of music, games and films downloaded and not played and my party affiliation that has long since stopped being representative of me...
I think I wanted to close this with something about the difference being self-conscious about it all... But now that I think about it, I'm old too! Damn! When did this happen? Shit... Should have just bought an iPhone.
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(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday October 10 2022, @09:21PM (1 child)
My guitar is in a guitar case. It's the case that is collecting dust instead of the guitar.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday October 11 2022, @10:47AM
That's where the electric went. But what about the 3 acoustics? :D
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Sunday October 09 2022, @02:31PM (3 children)
the only winning move is not to use Facebook.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2022, @02:43PM (2 children)
> the only winning move is not to use Facebook.
That's a start, but the problem is somewhat larger. Feel free to add to this poll--
[x] I don't use FB
[x] I don't use Twitter
[ ] I don't use Gmail
[x] I don't do personal banking online
[ ] I don't do business banking online
[ ] .............
[x] Profit???
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:53PM (1 child)
Here's my extended list (plus some comments), feel free to add further:
[x] I don't use FB
[x] I don't use Twitter
[x] I don't use Gmail
(well, there's one that was generated when initializing my smartphone, but I don't use it for my normal mail)
[ ] I don't do personal banking online
[x] I don't do business banking online
(but then, I don't do business banking at all)
[x] I don't use Tik Tok
[x] I don't use WhatsApp
[x] I don't use Instagram
[x] I don't normally use Google search
[x] I don't normally use Google Maps
[ ] I don't use a smartphone
(was still true until very recently)
[ ] I don't use YouTube
[x] I use an ad blocker
[x] I disable JavaScript by default
(admittedly only on the desktop)
[ ] .............
[x] Profit???
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 10 2022, @03:56PM
[x] I try not to get suckered into latest stupid tech fad. (MySpace, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.)
[x] I only look at stupid stuff my wife needs me to. (Keeping the peace. Think of it as doing research on how stupid and manipulative latest list of X things can be.)
[x] I try to spread the good news of uBlock Origin to the unwashed masses. (I don't do this much, because I generally avoid people I don't need to interact with.)
[x] I try to do at least one fun thing a day. (My stupid health tracking app, says it's good for me. Thanks for that Administration. Who am I to argue with fun.)
[x] I try not to complicate my own life. Work does plenty of that already. Not to mention the entirety of social interactions with humans. We all make mistakes. Hopefully you can find some people that will tolerate yours.
[x] I try to keep my priorities lined up. Work isn't #1, my boss, and certainly my boss's boss / Administration sure aren't going to be putting me at #1 either. At least you certainly hope not! I definitely try to be good to those under me, though.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday October 09 2022, @02:52PM
Because spending one's life using Facebook, or other addictive apps means the opposite of "digital literate" to me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 09 2022, @04:19PM
Fun movie (if you don't care about the crude humor and language): Jexi.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @04:40PM (5 children)
Biased sampling:
1. If you want to survey users about privacy, avoid advertising your survey on Facebook or Google's ad networks since even the least technically among the people that actually care about privacy are running ad blockers that target those networks specifically.
2. Ask yourself who bothers filling out online surveys...
3. Ask yourself who actually cares about hiding what kind of music they're hearing (as opposed to talking about their favorite genres and bands until your ears bleeds)...
4. Ask yourself who uses music recommendation apps in the first place...
Key point is, whether it's 7, 751 or 700k users, they're still users of privacy violating applications that people who are actually technically literate, as opposed to thinking they are, would generally avoid or limit to work and family related bare essential use cases.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:34PM (4 children)
Where did you see mention of it being an online survey?
Assuming it is, I absolutely agree - the selection bias of online and even phone surveys tend to heavily bias your results, to the point that it renders your results essentially irrelevant to the general population. But that's pretty commonly known, and *should* get your study tossed out of any decent journal. (not that that's any guarantee)
However, the article specifically says they had participants use various versions of the app (which would *insanely* bias your results if it were people willing to install a random app from someone online claiming to be a researcher), with the survey being about their feelings about it.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday October 09 2022, @08:08PM (3 children)
From the paper:
( https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3491102.3502112 [acm.org] p.2)
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 09 2022, @08:54PM (2 children)
All right then.
That's a rather important detail to leave out of the article. In fact, based on your quote it sounds like the article is grossly misrepresenting the nature of the experiment as something that was actually done, rather than a though experiment performed via online survey.
Which makes me think the author is either grossly incompetent, or is trying to advance a particular narrative for some rea$on. And since I can't see an obvious $ angle, I'm willing to assume gross incompetence.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 10 2022, @03:59PM
Hey, can't rule out publish or perish! Could just be lazy or gaming the system.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday October 10 2022, @09:27PM
The actual paper states quite clearly that they are presenting scenarios for the test subjects to evaluate, not actually giving them apps to try out or a while.
It's the article that does the misrepresentation, presumably written by promotional copywriters, and not by the researchers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:12PM (3 children)
Drug users are perfectly aware of the consequances of taking the drugs they abuse, they know they lower their quality of life and that of others around them and they're ashamed to be dependent. Yet they keep doing it.
Apps are drugs. Classic case of addiction.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:48PM
Release of endogenous dopamine, just as powerful as many of the more traditional sources like sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 09 2022, @05:58PM
That's clearly an overgeneralization. I for one am clearly not addicted to my stopwatch app. Indeed, I don't open it unless I actually need a stopwatch or timer (and most of the cases where I need a timer, I still use a mechanical one).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday October 09 2022, @06:37PM
That's a gross over-generalization.
If you restricted it to drug *addicts*, maybe. But ascribing such decisions or results to every person who has an occasional glass of wine with dinner is ridiculous. And alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs around, and pretty high on the addictiveness scale as well.