Maartje Niezen

Digital ‘solutions’ to unhealthy lifestyle ‘problems’: the construction of social and personal risks in the development of eCoaches

In this article, we critically interrogate the discourses used during the development of eCoaches. We draw on data from a four-phase qualitative study about the ethical, legal and social aspects of using digital technologies to encourage lifestyle changes that was conducted in the Netherlands between March 2014 and May 2015. The four phases of this study included interviews, document analysis, participant observation, interventionist workshops on legal issues and a forward-looking techno-ethical scenarios workshop. We use data from the first three phases to identify how both health-related and technology-related risks for individuals and society were constructed. There were multiple, concurrent references to risk in the programme and project documents, as well as in the various discussions we observed among designers. We discuss three major constructions of risk found in these discourses: risks to the health system, risks of developing an ineffective eCoach and new risks to the individual user. We argue that these three constructions feed particular norms and values into the design of the resultant eCoaches, whereby notions such as effectiveness, social solidarity, responsibility for health and individual autonomy (and thus, our understanding of what constitutes ‘risk’) are redefined. Understandings of risk may shift once users begin engaging with these eCoaches in practice. Future research should therefore also examine (discursive) constructions and understandings of digital risk from the perspective of the users of such technologies.

The Value of Accountability in the Cloud: Individual Willingness to Pay for Transparency

Within the global cloud market, accountability is needed to help overcome barriers to cloud service adoption. A key inhibitor for movement to software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud models is lack of consumer trust. ?Potential cloud customers perceive a lack of transparency and relatively less control [on their data] than with traditional models? [1]. One way of introducing accountability in the cloud ecosystem is by means of accountability tools. These tools offer cloud customers more insight in the use (e.g., processing, storage, sharing and deletion) of their data in the cloud. Moreover, they promise to promote responsible data stewardship by both cloud providers and cloud users [2]. However, the economic viability of these tools remains unclear. In fact, it is generally assumed that people are willing to pay for cloud services that would otherwise be free, if these cloud services account for their data processes and these processes are supervised. This article explores the economic viability of one of the accountability tools and mechanisms that account for responsible data stewardship in the cloud, specifically a transparency tool. We explore whether individual cloud customers actually are interested in paying for accountability tools. Thus far, no studies exist to support this claim and the actual willingness to pay among consumers may be significantly lower than is assumed by accountability tool developers. Our investigation uses a sample of lay people and explores their general willingness to pay for a tool that offers them transparency about their data in the cloud and its use by the cloud provider and possible others.

Unobtrusiveness in mHealth Design and Use: A Systematic Literature Study

mHealth still is an emerging and rapidly developing field of study. mHealth promises to increase access to care at lower costs and with greater acceptance. The increased acceptance of mHealth is often related to the diminished obtrusiveness of the device monitoring, coaching , diagnosing, and/or collecting data of its user. However, such ‘unobtrusiveness ’ not only has gains, but might also come at a cost. This paper focuses on how obtrusiveness currently plays a role in the design and use of mHealth, and what social and ethical implications are associated with this role. To gain such understanding a literature review of PubMed and Web of Science was performed. Discourse analysis is used to study the identified themes in the review and the introduction of unobtrusiveness in mHealth. This analysis demonstrates a tension between the modernist discourse and the humanist discourse, since both discourses articulate obtrusiveness in a different way. While unobtrusiveness seems desirable from a users’ acceptance and design perspective, mHealth that is designed to be unobtrusive does have reported social and ethical implications. The developers and designers of future mHealth services should be aware of these implications. Users should be informed about the trade-off they make between unobtrusive monitoring or coaching via mHealth and potential infringement of privacy, loss of autonomy and will-power.

Understanding the cloud : The social implications of cloud computing and the need for accountability

Five years ago, cloud computing was one of the top emerging new technologies, nowadays it is almost common place. This rapid introduction of cloud business models in our society coincides with critical questions on the cloud’s risks, such as security and privacy. Moreover, there seems to be an increased demand for accountable behaviour in the cloud. This paper explores how society understands the cloud, its related risks and the need for accountability in the cloud. This exploration provides insight in the social implications of cloud and future Internet services and the way cloud and accountability tools will be adopted in society.