ECOLOGIES OF SPONSORSHIP: WHAT FITBIT USERS CAN TEACH US ABOUT DIGITAL LITERACY

As digital technologies have expanded, so have the literacy sponsors that support and shape how those technologies are used. This project focuses on one of these growing sites of sponsorship surrounding a specific health-tracking technology: wearable Fitbit devices. While much of the work on literacy sponsorship has focused on institutional sponsors as agents, I argue that the picture becomes more complicated and interesting when we place our focus on how users—often considered the sponsored—can become agents in a system that may have marginalized, excluded, or used them. Using a combination of qualitative methods, this dissertation highlights how various literacy sponsors create possibilities and constraints, how communities of users support and resist these frameworks, and how users can become digital literacy sponsors. This research maps the ecologies of sponsorship that Fitbit users engage in as both consumers and producers. The concept of “ecologies of sponsorship” is a unique contribution of this project, which expands traditional frameworks for understanding the stakeholders in literacy development to account for digital, networked environments. In addition to typical tracking practices, this research found that significant groups of users “hack” the technology to help them work toward subversive goals. Some users reject the stated purposes of health-tracking technology, instead manipulating their data to create an illusion of health. Some of these users have shared their alternative goals and tactics in online communities, which allows them to become sponsors of metistic digital literacies. Rather than transforming Fitbit technology and ideologies of health through explicit hostility or force, this research explores how users developed metistic practices to subvert health-tracking systems from within. Though this research focuses on the development of digital literacies in extra-curricular spaces, there are important implications for writing classrooms that aim to help students develop digital literacies. This research raises questions about how our classroom practices might shift if we add metistic literacies to frameworks that already support functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies. And by considering classroom-based teaching in the context of larger ecologies of sponsorship, this research highlights a need for new pedagogical practices that account for the distributed nature of technological expertise

Privacy Literacy In the Era of the Internet of Things and Big Data

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.The aim of this study was to investigate people’s privacy management practices in the digital environment, especially on platforms that generate and collect personal data as part of larger Big Data practices. The use of digital technologies have become part of our everyday life with the increased use of social networking sites for socialisation, sharing information, and entertainment, among other benefits. In addition, in the current digital age, there is increased use of Internet-connected devices like fitness trackers for monitoring various aspects of our physical activities, and also the use of digitally-tracked consumer loyalty systems. All these technologies generate and provide access to personal data to organisations and other individuals. In our current data-driven economy, personal data has become an important resource for service providers to mine data and gain insights into users’ behavioural activities in return for services. Increasingly, consumers are required to protect themselves, and “privacy in YOUR hands” is a common public service message by governments to protect their citizens. This study used an empirical approach to understand the extent to which users manage their privacy and their personal information, while enjoying the benefits and affordances of such technologies. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data from twenty-one (n=21) users who used all three technologies — social media, consumer loyalty systems, and fitness trackers. In addition to participant interviews, a Facebook walkthrough of the participants’ profiles was undertaken to understand their use of privacy settings and their online behaviours. Sandra Petronio’s (CPM) theory was used as the main lens in analysing the resulting data. The CPM theory, originally proposed in 2002, uses a boundary metaphor to explain how people make decisions about revealing or concealing personal information with various communication partners; they do so through boundary rule formation (who to share with) and boundary coordination (between people they shared with), and readjust if there is a boundary turbulence or breach of confidence. It was originally developed to understand interpersonal communication, but in this study, it is used as a framework to understand communication in digital technologies, where both people and organisations are involved. The findings show that people balance benefits against risks in information disclosure; they selectively disclosed personal information on social media and segmented their professional and social worlds as a privacy management strategy to delineate and distinguish the boundaries of the various privacy levels they desired in their personal and professional lives. The findings also show that individuals make a cost-benefit analysis –- or use privacy as a negotiation tool –- in trading their social and personal data for certain benefits, but also expect “contextual integrity” of their data; that is, they expect privacy protection against that data reaching outside the boundaries of the entity they were trading the data with. Participants' privacy literacy around social media platforms was the most evolved, for it was a new public-facing technology where they had a huge learning curve, and hence they were used to being somewhat careful already. In the case of loyalty systems, participants were somewhat aware of the risk of sharing too much personal information, but since these systems were generally run by companies that they trusted and had done business with for many years, they did not perceive as much of a threat in disclosing personal information to them, although these same companies had merged since and were now sharing data. In the case of fitness trackers and other wearable technologies, participants were generally much more open to sharing their health data with third-party organisations, as they clearly perceived some health (and sometimes monetary) benefits from doing so, among other derived value, and did not clearly envision the future risks such as higher health insurance premiums in the future in case their fitness routine falls short. While privacy knowledge is important for individuals in protecting their privacy, participants’ use of privacy protection strategies was often exercised after experiencing privacy breaches. Hence, boundary rule formation and boundary coordination are both an evolving process and change continually based on privacy knowledge gained and boundary turbulence experienced. The study also uncovered some challenges users face in their effort to manage their online information privacy including usability and an understanding of the reasons for privacy protection. This study provides evidence of how individuals use digital technologies in their everyday lives and participate in the digital economy, while also trying to protect their informational privacy. There is often a tension between individual and organisational motives in this environment, which can only be overcome through some level of privacy awareness and privacy literacy for individuals in addition to regulatory controls for organisations to maintain a level of “contextual integrity” when handling user data

Running to Your Own Beat:An Embodied Approach to Auditory Display Design

Personal fitness trackers represent a multi-billion-dollar industry, predicated on devices for assisting users in achieving their health goals. However, most current products only offer activity tracking and measurement of performance metrics, which do not ultimately address the need for technique related assistive feedback in a cost-effective way. Addressing this gap in the design space for assistive run training interfaces is also crucial in combating the negative effects of Forward Head Position, a condition resulting from mobile device use, with a rapid growth of incidence in the population. As such, Auditory Displays (AD) offer an innovative set of tools for creating such a device for runners. ADs present the opportunity to design interfaces which allow natural unencumbered motion, detached from the mobile or smartwatch screen, thus making them ideal for providing real-time assistive feedback for correcting head posture during running. However, issues with AD design have centred around overall usability and user-experience, therefore, in this thesis an ecological and embodied approach to AD design is presented as a vehicle for designing an assistive auditory interface for runners, which integrates seamlessly into their everyday environments

The geographies of digital health – digital therapeutic landscapes and mobilities

Digital technologies have long impacted the field of health, causing fundamental changes for the geographies of the production, movement, and consumption of health. Despite this, there is limited health geography engagement with digital health, and an understanding of how digital health affects the spatialities of health remains underdeveloped. Here, using autoethnography, I reflect on personal encounters with digital health in the UK to initiate analytical attention into the geographies of digital health. I demonstrate that digital health technologies are interconnected and increasingly structure access to health, impacting the equality of health; and that digital health disrupts existing, and creates new, therapeutic landscapes and mobilities

Self-Tracking by People Living with Multiple Sclerosis: Supporting Experiences of Agency in a Chronic Neurological Condition

Multiple sclerosis is a complex neurological condition. It disrupts the central nervous system leading to an individual range of physical, cognitive, and mental impairments. Research has focused on the tracking of primary disease indicators and disability outcome measures to assess the progression of this condition. However, there is little knowledge on how technologies could support the needs of people with multiple sclerosis (MS) in self-tracking their health and wellbeing. Drawing on qualitative research and design methods this thesis provides two contributions. Firstly, it improves understanding of self-tracking in MS self-management. Interview participants reported regaining a sense of control over MS through intertwining individual self-care practices with different self-tracking tools, including paper notebooks and fitness wearables. They associated experiences of control with their agency to document their health in holistic ways, involving symptom monitoring and life journaling. However, participants criticised that self-tracking apps can impede their capacities, in particular when the user experience is focused on predefined health indicators and the optimisation of health behaviour. These findings highlight the need to support people’s individual self-care intentions and agentive capacities through customisable self- tracking approaches. Secondly, this thesis contributes the design of Trackly, a technology probe that supports people in defining and colouring pictorial trackers, such as body shapes. We identify benefits and challenges of customisable and pictorial self-tracking through a field study of Trackly in MS self-management. Having been able to support their individual self-care intentions with Trackly, participants reported a spectrum of interrelated experiences of agency, including ownership, identity, awareness, mindfulness, and control. Overall, this thesis provides a qualitative account and design perspective that demonstrate how adapting self-tracking technologies to individual care needs supported experiences of agency. These findings are particularly relevant to the design of technologies aimed at leveraging personally meaningful self-care and quality of life

The UK code of practice for consumer IoT cybersecurity: where we are and what next

This report has been produced by the Geopolitics of Industrial Internet of Things Standards (GISt) research project led by Professors Madeline Carr and Stephen Hailes, and the Building Evidence for CoP Legislation (BECL) research project led by Dr Saheli Datta Burton and commisioned by the Secure-by-Design team of the United Kingdom Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Both GISt and BECL projects are held at the Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), University College London and funded by The PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity, a consortium of leading UK universities dedicated to understanding critical issues in the privacy, ethics, trust, reliability, acceptability, and security of the Internet of Things. Funding for PETRAS is provided by the UKRI’s Strategic Priorities Fund as part of the Security of Digital Technologies at the Periphery (SDTaP) programme

14 Years of Self-Tracking Technology for mHealth -- Literature Review: Lessons Learnt and the PAST SELF Framework

In today's connected society, many people rely on mHealth and self-tracking (ST) technology to help them adopt healthier habits with a focus on breaking their sedentary lifestyle and staying fit. However, there is scarce evidence of such technological interventions' effectiveness, and there are no standardized methods to evaluate their impact on people's physical activity (PA) and health. This work aims to help ST practitioners and researchers by empowering them with systematic guidelines and a framework for designing and evaluating technological interventions to facilitate health behavior change (HBC) and user engagement (UE), focusing on increasing PA and decreasing sedentariness. To this end, we conduct a literature review of 129 papers between 2008 and 2022, which identifies the core ST HCI design methods and their efficacy, as well as the most comprehensive list to date of UE evaluation metrics for ST. Based on the review's findings, we propose PAST SELF, a framework to guide the design and evaluation of ST technology that has potential applications in industrial and scientific settings. Finally, to facilitate researchers and practitioners, we complement this paper with an open corpus and an online, adaptive exploration tool for the PAST SELF data.Comment: 40 pages, 10 figure

THE DATAFICATION OF EVERYDAY LIFE: CRITICALLY CONTEXTUALIZING THE “QUANTIFIED SELF” IN PHYSICAL CULTURE

The contemporary moment has been characterized as that of the “Quantified Self” (QS); a time in which the body is increasingly subjected to meticulous measurement in the service of generating data that will maximize individual potential through self-improvement. The QS is most readily associated with fitness tracking devices like the Fitbit that quantify various aspects of physical activity (i.e., steps taken, distance walked, heart rate, caloric intake/output). While these devices are often taken up as an individual fitness or health choice, institutions, through efforts such as workplace wellness programs, increasingly utilize them to survey and manage their workers’ health. Widespread use of these technologies is often positioned as a panacea for institutional and personal betterment. In this dissertation, I critically evaluate this assumption, by examining the emergence, nature, and influence of the QS, through a contextualization of the quantification of the physically (in)active body. This is an important undertaking given that the preoccupation with statistical measurement and metrics has seemingly de-emphasized the experiential and, often un-quantifiable, dimensions of physical activity. In light of these concerns, I seek to understand if these technologies are enhancing people’s lives and allowing them to become technologically self-actualized, if they are alienating people from their bodies and physical activity while subjecting them to even greater scrutiny from others, or both. This dissertation comprises three interrelated research studies, in which I draw on the theoretical tools of Foucauldian poststructuralism and sociomaterialisms. In the first study, I historically contextualize the QS, with a focus on how and why the physically (in)active body has been quantified. The second study is a sensory ethnographic study wherein I analyze women runners’ fitness tracking practices to explore how fitness tracking shapes their experiences of embodiment and emplacement. Finally, in the third study I interview key informants in the workplace wellness industry and study documents from workplace wellness programs and proponents. By examining the sociomaterial conditions of self-tracking, both historical and contemporary, this dissertation highlights the politics of self-tracking and the contingencies that are required to produce ‘self-evident’ and factual data about oneself

New Perspectives in Critical Data Studies

This Open Access book examines the ambivalences of data power. Firstly, the ambivalences between global infrastructures and local invisibilities challenge the grand narrative of the ephemeral nature of a global data infrastructure. They make visible local working and living conditions, and the resources and arrangements required to operate and run them. Secondly, the book examines ambivalences between the state and data justice. It considers data justice in relation to state surveillance and data capitalism, and reflects on the ambivalences between an “entrepreneurial state” and a “welfare state”. Thirdly, the authors discuss ambivalences of everyday practices and collective action, in which civil society groups, communities, and movements try to position the interests of people against the “big players” in the tech industry. The book includes eighteen chapters that provide new and varied perspectives on the role of data and data infrastructures in our increasingly datafied societies

Obstacles to wearable computing

In the year 2021, wearable technology could look beautiful and feel magical, but instead is exemplified by a plain wristband that looks suspiciously like a prison monitor. How can we make wearable technology that respects our privacy, enhances our daily lives, integrates with our other connected devices without leashing us to a smartphone, and visually expresses who we are? This study uses a novel method of participatory design fiction (PDFi) to understand potential users of everyday wearable technology through storytelling. I recruited participants from the general public and gave them a five-point prompt to create a design fiction (DF), which inspired the user-centred design of an everyday connected wearable device. The participants each received a technology probe to wear in the wild for a year. They then updated their DFs as a way to reflect on the implications of the technology. For the purposes of privacy, augmenting device functionality through interoperability, and integration into an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, I used the Hub-of-All-Things personal data store to provide the software infrastructure. By listening to their stories, we can elicit design concepts directly from the users, to help us create wearable IoT devices that put the wearer at the centre of the design process, and are satisfying both functionally and emotionally.The Alan Turing Institute Doctoral Scheme, University of Cambridge Department of Computer Science and Technology, The Kenneth Hayter Memorial Fun