TY - GEN

T1 - Empowering Resignation: There’s an App for That

AU - Seberger, John

AU - Llavore, Marissel

AU - Wyant, Nicholas Nye

AU - Shklovski, Irina

AU - Patil, Sameer

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - “There’s an app for that” is perhaps the definitive rhetoric of our times. To understand how users navigate the trade-offs involved in using apps that support a variety of everyday activities, we conducted scenario-based semi-structured interviews (n = 25). Despite the technical and regulatory mechanisms that are supposedly meant to empower users to manage their privacy, we found that users express an overarching feeling of resignation regarding privacy matters. Because these apps provide convenience and other benefits, as one participant put it, “there is a very fine line” that marks the divide between feeling empowered in the use of technology and coping with the discomfort and creepiness arising from invasive app behavior. Participants consistently expressed being resigned to disclose data even as they accepted personal responsibility for their own privacy. We apply the findings to discuss the limits of empowerment as a design logic for privacy-oriented solutions.

AB - “There’s an app for that” is perhaps the definitive rhetoric of our times. To understand how users navigate the trade-offs involved in using apps that support a variety of everyday activities, we conducted scenario-based semi-structured interviews (n = 25). Despite the technical and regulatory mechanisms that are supposedly meant to empower users to manage their privacy, we found that users express an overarching feeling of resignation regarding privacy matters. Because these apps provide convenience and other benefits, as one participant put it, “there is a very fine line” that marks the divide between feeling empowered in the use of technology and coping with the discomfort and creepiness arising from invasive app behavior. Participants consistently expressed being resigned to disclose data even as they accepted personal responsibility for their own privacy. We apply the findings to discuss the limits of empowerment as a design logic for privacy-oriented solutions.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - privacy

KW - resignation

U2 - 10.1145/3411764.3445293

DO - 10.1145/3411764.3445293

M3 - Article in proceedings

SP - 1

EP - 18

BT - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

T2 - CHI 2021 Virtual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Y2 - 8 May 2021 through 13 May 2021

ER -