Young people's views regarding participation in mental health and wellbeing research through social media

Social media is a central component in the lives of many young people, and provides innovative potential to conduct research among this population. Ethical issues around online research have been subject to much debate, yet young people have seldom been consulted to provide a youth perspective and voice. Eight (8) focus groups involving 48 Grade 9 Western Australian secondary school students aged 13-14 years were held in 2012, to investigate how young people perceive the feasibility and acceptability of social media when used as a research tool to investigate various issues relevant to their mental health and wellbeing. Whilst young people recognise many benefits of researchers using social media in this way, such as its relevance, innovation and accessibility, there were salient issues of privacy, consent, and practicality that require careful negotiation. There is a need for continued exploration and scientific debate of the moral and ethical implications of using social media for research, to help ensure this is employed in an appropriate and effective way that is respectful of and sensitive to the needs and views of young peoplepeer-reviewe

Rapid prototyping and fast user trial of multimedia broadcast and cellular services

This paper presents the results of fast user trial of multimedia services that are enabled when a mobile terminal has access to converged services over digital broadcast and mobile telecommunications networks. It first describes the motivations behind developing this system and describes the service scenarios that benefit most from it. It then provides an overview of the service components of the test case scenario. Finally, it presents the results of fast user trials on end users of the services that were developed. This work was conducted as part of the EU-funded CISMUNDUS project

Ethical limits to the intrusiveness of online advertising formats: A critical review of Better Ads Standards

This article argues that advertising ethics, traditionally focused on ad contents and vulnerable audiences, should be also applied to ad format intrusiveness. The increasing appearance of highly intrusive advertising formats resulted in an extraordinarily growth of ad blocking systems. To fight the economic costs of the ad blocker phenomenon, the most relevant agents of the industry have created a never seen Coalition for Better Ads including marketers, publishers, and agencies worldwide. This article analyses the experiments carried out by the Coalition to create Better Ads Standards establishing the limits of ad format intrusiveness to be implemented worldwide by means of self-regulation. Based on classical and current approaches to advertising ethics, this work explains that highly annoying ads should not only be banned for practical reasons but for overpassing ethical limits in terms of respect for the persuadee, equity of the persuasive appeal, and social responsibility for the common good. A basic exploratory replication study is presented to simulate further research on the ethical limits of intrusive advertising. Establishing which ad formats are allowed to continue and which ones should gradually disappear is such a relevant process for many stakeholders that it requires further discussion by consumers and scholars

Supporting Location Privacy Management through Feedback and Control

Participation in modern, socially-focused digital systems involves a large degree of privacy management, i.e. controlling who may access what information under what circumstances. Effective privacy management (control) requires that mobile systems’ users be able to make informed privacy decisions as their experience and knowledge of a system progresses. By informed, we mean users be aware of the actual information flow. Moreover, privacy preferences vary across the context and it is hard to define privacy policy that reflects the dynamic nature of our lives. This research explores the problem of supporting awareness of information flow and designing usable interfaces for maintaining privacy policies ad-hoc. We borrow from the world of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) and propose to incorporate social translucence, a design approach that “supports coherent behaviour by making participants and their activities visible to one another”. We use the characteristics of social translucence, namely visibility, awareness and accountability in order to introduce social norms in spatially dispersed systems. Our research is driven by two questions: (1) how can artifacts from real world social interaction, such as responsibility, be embedded into mobile interaction; and (2) can systems be designed in which both privacy violations and the burden of privacy management is minimized. The contributions of our work are: (1) an implementation of Buddy Tracker, privacy-aware location-sharing application based on the social translucence; (2) the design and evaluation of the concept of real-time feedback as a means of incorporating social translucence in location-sharing scenarios; and finally (3) a novel interface for ad-hoc privacy management called Privacy-Shake. We explore the role of real-time feedback for privacy management in the context of Buddy Tracker. Informed by focus group discussions, interviews, surveys and two field trials of Buddy Tracker we found that when using a system that provided real-time feedback, people were more accountable for their actions and reduced the number of unreasonable location requests. From our observations we develop concrete design guidelines for incorporating real-time feedback into information sharing applications in a manner that ensures social acceptance of the technology

Technology Readiness Motivators and Online Behavioural Advertising: A Perceived Benefits-Risk Assessment Using Privacy Calculus Theory

Purpose: The present research intended to find whether the technology readiness motivators, Optimism, and innovativeness, impact the user's intention to accept Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA), an area that requires additional research.   Theoretical framework: Even though these personalized advertisements provide an enhanced user experience, they provide users with advertisements based on their online surfing behavior, and unfortunately, at the same time, it also creates privacy concerns. At the same time, Privacy Calculus Theory (PCT) is considered an appropriate theory when it comes to a rational benefits-costs assessment of the privacy-centred decision-making by internet users.   Design/Methodology: Based on an extensive literature review, a conceptual model is being proposed, and a scenario-based questionnaire was developed and pursued on internet users' experience of the subject matter. Six hundred ten valid responses were received, and PLS-SEM was used to analyze the results.   Findings: The results show that Optimism and innovativeness have a direct and indirect effect on the intention to accept Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA). Technology readiness Motivators have a detrimental impact on the intention to accept OBA.   Research, Practical and Social implications: Based on our findings, we may be able to gain a deeper understanding of the theory behind targeted, data-driven digital advertising and the way in which it pertains to online shopping. Presented here is evidence to support the theory that the predisposition of users toward new technology could be the reason for users ranking perceived benefits higher than risk.   Originality/Value: This study attributes original work in the sense that it is the first time that an individual’s predisposition towards technology has been taken into consideration while analysing the acceptance of OBA grounded on the Privacy Calculus framework

Effects of Home Voice Assistants' Autonomy on Instrusiveness and Usefulness: Direct, Indirect, and Moderating Effects of Interactivity

This research investigates whether interactivity of home voice assistants can reduce the consumer's perceptions of intrusiveness when using these products because of their autonomy. To do so, the authors applied structural equation modeling to 607 questionnaires. The results show that autonomy has a quadratic effect on intrusiveness and usefulness, being more intense for high levels of autonomy. Interactivity reduces intrusiveness both directly and indirectly through brand trust, and interactivity has a positive effect on usefulness. Furthermore, interactivity moderates the effect of autonomy on intrusiveness. These results lead to interesting managerial implications, such as the inclusion of interactive characteristics in smart products to enable consumers to control and communicate with them

Multimodal and ubiquitous computing systems: supporting independent-living older users

We document the rationale and design of a multimodal interface to a pervasive/ubiquitous computing system that supports independent living by older people in their own homes. The Millennium Home system involves fitting a resident’s home with sensors – these sensors can be used to trigger sequences of interaction with the resident to warn them about dangerous events, or to check if they need external help. We draw lessons from the design process and conclude the paper with implications for the design of multimodal interfaces to ubiquitous systems developed for the elderly and in healthcare, as well as for more general ubiquitous computing applications

RFID Localisation For Internet Of Things Smart Homes: A Survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables numerous business opportunities in fields as diverse as e-health, smart cities, smart homes, among many others. The IoT incorporates multiple long-range, short-range, and personal area wireless networks and technologies into the designs of IoT applications. Localisation in indoor positioning systems plays an important role in the IoT. Location Based IoT applications range from tracking objects and people in real-time, assets management, agriculture, assisted monitoring technologies for healthcare, and smart homes, to name a few. Radio Frequency based systems for indoor positioning such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key enabler technology for the IoT due to its costeffective, high readability rates, automatic identification and, importantly, its energy efficiency characteristic. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art RFID technologies in IoT Smart Homes applications. It presents several comparable studies of RFID based projects in smart homes and discusses the applications, techniques, algorithms, and challenges of adopting RFID technologies in IoT smart home systems.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 3 table

Online advertising: analysis of privacy threats and protection approaches

Online advertising, the pillar of the “free” content on the Web, has revolutionized the marketing business in recent years by creating a myriad of new opportunities for advertisers to reach potential customers. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure composed of a variety of intermediary entities and technologies whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded behind the scenes at an unprecedented rate. Despite the enormous value of online advertising, however, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prompt serious privacy concerns. This article surveys the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and presents a thorough overview of the underlying privacy risks and the solutions that may mitigate them. We first analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising. In particular, we examine the main components of the advertising infrastructure in terms of tracking capabilities, data collection, aggregation level and privacy risk, and overview the tracking and data-sharing technologies employed by these components. Then, we conduct a comprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and compare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and impact on the Web.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft