Participant Perceptions of Twitter Research Ethics

Social computing systems such as Twitter present new research sites that have provided billions of data points to researchers. However, the availability of public social media data has also presented ethical challenges. As the research community works to create ethical norms, we should be considering users’ concerns as well. With this in mind, we report on an exploratory survey of Twitter users’ perceptions of the use of tweets in research. Within our survey sample, few users were previously aware that their public tweets could be used by researchers, and the majority felt that researchers should not be able to use tweets without consent. However, we find that these attitudes are highly contextual, depending on factors such as how the research is conducted or disseminated, who is conducting it, and what the study is about. The findings of this study point to potential best practices for researchers conducting observation and analysis of public data

No exchange, same pain, no gain : Risk–reward of wearable healthcare disclosure of health personally identifiable information for enhanced pain treatment

Wearable technologies have created fascinating opportunities for patients to treat chronic pain in a discreet, mobile fashion. However, many of these health wearables require patients to disclose sensitive information, including health information (e.g., heart rate, glucose levels) and personal information (location, email, name, etc.). Individuals using wearables for treatment of chronic pain may sacrifice social health elements, including their privacy, in exchange for better physical and mental health. Utilizing communication privacy management, a popular disclosure theory, this article explores the policy and ethical ramifications of patients disclosing sensitive health information in exchange for better health treatment and relief of chronic pain. The article identifies scenarios where a user must disclose information, and what factors motivate or dissuade disclosure, and ultimately the use of a health wearable. Practical implications of this conceptual article include an improved understanding of how and why consumers may disclose personal data to health wearables, and potential impacts for public policy and ethics regarding how wearables and their manufacturers entice disclosure of private health information

The Framework of Security-Enhancing Friction: How UX Can Help Users Behave More Securely

A growing body of research in the usable privacy and security community addresses the question of how to best influence user behavior to reduce risk-taking.We propose to address this challenge by integrating the concept of user experience (UX) into empirical usable privacy and security studies that attempt to change risktaking behavior. UX enables us to study the complex interplay between user-related, system-related and contextual factors and provides insights into the experiential aspects underlying behavior change, including negative experiences. We first compare and contrast existing security-enhancing interventions (e.g., nudges, warnings, fear appeals) through the lens of friction. We then build on these insights to argue that it can be desirable to design for moments of negative UX in security-critical situations. For this purpose, we introduce the novel concept of security-enhancing friction, friction that effectively reduces the occurrence of risk-taking behavior and ensures that the overall UX (after use) is not compromised. We illustrate how security-enhancing friction provides an actionable way to systematically integrate the concept of UX into empirical usable privacy and security studies for meeting both the objectives of secure behavior and of overall acceptable experience