Nudging citizens through technology in smart cities

In the last decade, several smart cities throughout the world have started employing Internet of Things, big data, and algorithms to nudge citizens to save more water and energy, live healthily, use public transportation, and participate more actively in local affairs. Thus far, the potential and implications of data-driven nudges and behavioral insights in smart cities have remained an overlooked subject in the legal literature. Nevertheless, combining technology with behavioral insights may allow smart cities to nudge citizens more systematically and help these urban centers achieve their sustainability goals and promote civic engagement. For example, in Boston, real-time feedback on driving has increased road safety and in Eindhoven, light sensors have been used to successfully reduce nightlife crime and disturbance. While nudging tends to be well-intended, data-driven nudges raise a number of legal and ethical issues. This article offers a novel and interdisciplinary perspective on nudging which delves into the legal, ethical, and trust implications of collecting and processing large amounts of personal and impersonal data to influence citizens’ behavior in smart cities

Nudging in the pre-purchase phase: On the effectiveness of social norm nudges, previous TikTok usage and potential interactions

Digital nudges are used to guide users’ attention and behavior in different phases of the customer journey. This paper focuses on the application of digital nudges in the pre-purchase phase of customer journeys by analyzing the potential effect of a social norm nudge on information consumption intentions. The study further aims to explore the extent that social media usage prior to a specific task may strengthen or weaken the nudging effect. An experiment was conducted asking participants (n = 209) to imagine planning their summer vacation and inform themselves about travelling during the Covid pandemic. The results show that while age significantly affected the intention to consume information, neither the social norm nudge nor prior social media usage appeared to be effective in the chosen context

Nudging Citizens through Technology in Smart Cities

In the last decade, several smart cities throughout the world have started employing Internet of Things, big data, and algorithms to nudge citizens to save more water and energy, live healthily, use public transportation, and participate more actively in local affairs. Thus far, the potential and implications of data-driven nudges and behavioral insights in smart cities have remained an overlooked subject in the legal literature. Nevertheless, combining technology with behavioral insights may allow smart cities to nudge citizens more systematically and help these urban centers achieve their sustainability goals and promote civic engagement. For example, in Boston, real-time feedback on driving has increased road safety and in Eindhoven, light sensors have been used to successfully reduce nightlife crime and disturbance. While nudging tends to be well-intended, data-driven nudges raise a number of legal and ethical issues. This article offers a novel and interdisciplinary perspective on nudging which delves into the legal, ethical, and trust implications of collecting and processing large amounts of personal and impersonal data to influence citizens’ behavior in smart cities

Personalized Nudges with Edge Computing

This thesis aims to investigate the role of edge computing in a smart nudging system. A smart nudging system has requirements for efficient data processing of personal and context-aware data from heterogeneous sources. Furthermore, a smart nudging system needs to protect and preserve the privacy of data within the system. Edge computing has been proposed as a computing paradigm in a smart nudging system to accommodate some of these requirements. The edge computing paradigm makes promises of low latency, context-aware data collection and contributions to privacy when running on an edge device. However, edge computing has limitations in resources for heavy computations and storage. Therefore, a smart nudging system, NuEdge, has been proposed to utilize edge computing resources integrated with cloud computing, a local server, and IoT devices for better performance, privacy storage, and data off-loading. Further, a prototype of the NuEdge system has been implemented to discover the possibilities and limitations of the prototype in a real-world scenario. The primary nudge goal of the system is to improve physical activity for inactive users. By gathering research on edge computing and smart nudging, combined with the implementation's observations, has edge computing's role in smart nudging been evaluated. Edge computing has significantly contributed to efficient data collection in a smart nudging system and lower latency for data transmissions. Future work should include a large-scale prototype and new technologies like 5G to investigate the limitations of edge device capabilities such as power consumption, storage, and computational power

Dishonesty, neutralisation and nudging

E-banking offers clients unparalleled convenience but also exposes them to potential fraud from cyber criminals. Traditionally, banks use technical security measures to ameliorate these kinds of threats. These measures, while essential, are not universally efficacious in preventing fraud. It would be wise to augment technical measures with softer measures such as behavioural interventions (i.e., nudges). In this paper, we report on the effectiveness of behavioural nudges designed to dissuade opportunistic “others” from committing e-banking fraud. Here, we report on an investigation into the impact of the deployment of a number of behavioural nudges in an e-banking customer interface. We evaluated their impact through semi-structured interviews with e-banking customers in the United States of America. We found that nudges which emphasise empathy and heightened awareness of traditional security measures were remarkably effective in dissuading dishonesty. Notably, deployment immediately after login yielded optimal results. Our findings highlight the potential of behavioural nudges to reduce ebanking fraud, thereby augmenting traditional technical countermeasures. We conclude with recommendations for future research

The Problems With Decision-Making

Our society faces major challenges in numerous areas, including climate change and healthcare. Addressing these problems with technological advances are of great importance. Increasingly, however, consumers are resisting or rejecting such technological interventions based on inappropriate assignment of risk. In other words, the consumer assessment of risk is not in line with evidence-based assessment of risk. This article focuses on two controversial areas, vaccines and genetically engineered food, as examples in which consumers assign a high risk despite an evidence-based assessment of low risk. This article describes how empirically tested decision-making theories explain why consumers inappropriately assign risk. While these prevailing theories and strategies are meritorious, this article suggests that changes in modern day society need to be considered as variables in how consumers assign risk. This is a tough problem to solve and current risk communication strategies appear insufficient. This leads to the central issue addressed in this article, which is that risk communication/policy implementation needs to address emergent variables in modern society, including (1) rise of hyper individualism, (2) role of the internet, and (3) economic interests. After discussing how these variables likely apply to consumer risk assessment, this article proposes an important new direction, both normatively and empirically, to highlight the problem and analyze consumer decision-making

Dishonesty, neutralisation and nudging

E-banking offers clients unparalleled convenience but also exposes them to potential fraud from cyber criminals. Traditionally, banks use technical security measures to ameliorate these kinds of threats. These measures, while essential, are not universally efficacious in preventing fraud. It would be wise to augment technical measures with softer measures such as behavioural interventions (i.e., nudges). In this paper, we report on the effectiveness of behavioural nudges designed to dissuade opportunistic “others” from committing e-banking fraud. Here, we report on an investigation into the impact of the deployment of a number of behavioural nudges in an e-banking customer interface. We evaluated their impact through semi-structured interviews with e-banking customers in the United States of America. We found that nudges which emphasise empathy and heightened awareness of traditional security measures were remarkably effective in dissuading dishonesty. Notably, deployment immediately after login yielded optimal results. Our findings highlight the potential of behavioural nudges to reduce ebanking fraud, thereby augmenting traditional technical countermeasures. We conclude with recommendations for future research

Nudging purchase intention towards more secure domestic IoT:The effect of label features and psychological mechanisms

The domestic Internet of Things market is flooded with unsecure devices and yet, the demand rises. This study aimed to find ways for labels to nudge consumers into purchasing safer devices. Two studies were conducted, one with a Dutch student sample (N = 193) and one with a UK population sample (N = 278). Multiple labels were presented to participants to test potential effects of security degree (high vs. low), framing (positive vs. negative) and label type (grade format vs. informative format), in interaction with initial attitude towards smart devices and trust in the label, on purchase intention. Furthermore, we investigated the antecedents of trust in the label. Findings for both studies indicated significant positive effects of high security degree, positive framing, initial attitude and trust in the label on purchase intention. Both studies find that the positive effect of security degree on purchase intention was stronger when initial attitude was higher and when trust in the label was higher. The informative label was both more trusted and more preferred, so therefore recommended to be used. Overall, security information is effective in steering people towards purchasing safer IoT, and higher trust in the label increases the effectiveness of the label