An official website of the United States government
The Internet of Things provides household device users with an ability to connect and manage numerous devices over a common platform. However, the sheer number of possible privacy settings creates issues such as choice overload. This article outlines a data-driven approach to understand how users make privacy decisions in household IoT scenarios. We demonstrate that users are not just influenced by the specifics of the IoT scenario, but also by aspects immaterial to the decision, such as the default setting and its framing.
more »
« less
Exploring Defaults and Framing effects on Privacy Decision Making in Smarthomes
Research has shown that privacy decisions are affected by heuristic influences such as default settings and framing, and such effects are likely also present in smarthome privacy de- cisions. In this paper we pose the challenge question: How exactly do defaults and framing influence smarthome users’ privacy decisions? We conduct a large-scale scenario-based study with a mixed fractional factorial design, and use sta- tistical analysis and machine learning to investigate these effects. We discuss the implications of our findings for the designers of smarthome privacy-setting interfaces.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1640664
- PAR ID:
- 10072411
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the SOUPS 2018 Workshop on the Human aspects of Smarthome Security and Privacy (WSSP)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
COVID-19 exposure-notification apps have struggled to gain adoption. Existing literature posits as potential causes of this low adoption: privacy concerns, insufficient data transparency, and the type of appeal – collective- vs. individual-good – used to frame the app. As policy guidance suggests using tailored advertising to evaluate the effects of these factors, we present the first field study of COVID-19 contact tracing apps with a randomized, control trial of 14 different advertisements for CovidDefense, Louisiana’s COVID-19 exposure-notification app. We find that all three hypothesized factors – privacy, data transparency, and appeals framing – relate to app adoption, even when controlling for age, gender, and community density. Our results offer (1) the first field evidence supporting the use of collective-good appeals, (2) nuanced findings regarding the efficacy of data and privacy transparency, the effects of which are moderated by appeal framing and potential users’ demographics, and (3) field-evidence-based guidance for future efforts to encourage pro-social health technology adoption.more » « less
-
Abstract Framing effects play a central role in the debate regarding human rationality. They violate the normative principle ofdescription invariance, which states that merely redescribing options or outcomes in equivalent ways should not affect judgments or decisions. Description invariance is considered by many decision researchers to be “normatively unassailable”, and violations are widely regarded as demonstrations of systematic irrationality. This article develops an alternative perspective on invariance violations, applying Funder’s (1987) distinction between “errors” and “mistakes”. Description invariance implicitly assumes that (1) rational preferences must be complete and (2) frames do not convey choice-relevant information. We argue that both assumptions often do not hold. When they fail, framing effects in the laboratory are not “errors”, and they do not provide evidence for “mistakes” in natural environments. Furthermore, recent findings suggest that participants often do not regard different responses to different frames as unreasonable, and presenting them with arguments for and against description invariance has little effect on their views. Finally, we argue that similar lessons generalize to other coherence norms, such as procedure invariance and independence of irrelevant alternatives.more » « less
-
Supporting students to frame design problems is one of the most challenging aspects of engineering education, and as faculty, sharing agency with students, such that they have framing agency to make decisions that are consequential to the problem frame is difficult. In this paper, we report on students’ progress framing authentic problems early and after four months of work. Set in a high-agency, co-curricular intramural program where students work on interdisciplinary design projects, we found, using surveys and student work, that early in the process, students reported open-ended problems constrained somewhat by budget or design requirements. Over time, they came to recognize their own limitations as constraining, became more tentative in their treatment of the problem, and reported opportunities to learn from their own and peers’ decisions. Students who reported opportunities to learn also reported working on somewhat more constrained problems yet being able to make consequential decisions. Collectively, this suggests problems that offer a Goldilocks middle ground, that include endemic constraints yet allow students to make consequential decisions may be a key ingredient for developing problem framing capacity. We share instructional implications related to supporting students to differentiate between design requirements and constraints, in shifting from qualitative understandings to quantitative requirements and their role in doing so, and navigating their own limitations.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Supporting students to frame design problems is one of the most challenging aspects of engineering education, and as faculty, sharing agency with students, such that they have framing agency to make decisions that are consequential to the problem frame is difficult. In this paper, we report on students’ progress framing authentic problems early and after four months of work. Set in a high-agency, co-curricular intramural program where students work on interdisciplinary design projects, we found, using surveys and student work, that early in the process, students reported open-ended problems constrained somewhat by budget or design requirements. Over time, they came to recognize their own limitations as constraining, became more tentative in their treatment of the problem, and reported opportunities to learn from their own and peers’ decisions. Students who reported opportunities to learn also reported working on somewhat more constrained problems yet being able to make consequential decisions. Collectively, this suggests problems that offer a Goldilocks middle ground, that include endemic constraints yet allow students to make consequential decisions may be a key ingredient for developing problem framing capacity. We share instructional implications related to supporting students to differentiate between design requirements and constraints, in shifting from qualitative understandings to quantitative requirements and their role in doing so, and navigating their own limitations.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
