Not just complacency: why people are reluctant to use COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

Mark Coote/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Farkhondeh Hassandoust, Auckland University of Technology

This week’s announcement of two new COVID-19 vaccine pre-purchase deals is encouraging, but doesn’t mean New Zealanders should become complacent about using the NZ COVID Tracer app during the summer holidays.

The immunisation rollout won’t start until the second quarter of 2021, and the government is encouraging New Zealanders to continue using the app, including the recently upgraded bluetooth function, as part of its plan to manage the pandemic during the holiday period.

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During the past weeks, the number of daily scans has dropped significantly, down from just over 900,000 scans per day at the end of November to fewer than 400,000 in mid-December.

With no active cases of COVID-19 in the commmunity, complacency might be part of the issue in New Zealand, but as our research in the US shows, worries about privacy and trust continue to make people reluctant to use contact-tracing apps.

Concerns about privacy and surveillance

We surveyed 853 people from every state in the US to identify the factors promoting or inhibiting their use of contact-tracing applications. Our survey reveals two seemingly contradictory findings.

Individuals are highly motivated to use contact-tracing apps, for the sake of their own health and that of society as a whole. But the study also found people are concerned about privacy, social disapproval and surveillance.

The findings suggest people’s trust in the data collectors is dependent on the technology features of these apps (for example, information sensitivity and anonymity) and the privacy protection initiatives instigated by the authorities.

With the holiday season just around the corner — and even though New Zealand is currently free of community transmission — our findings are pertinent. New Zealanders will travel more during the summer period, and it is more important than ever to use contact-tracing apps to improve our chances of getting on top of any potential outbreaks as quickly as possible.

How, then, to overcome concerns about privacy and trust and make sure New Zealanders use the upgraded app during summer?

The benefits of adopting contact-tracing apps are mainly in shared public health, and it is important these societal health benefits are emphasised. In order to quell concerns, data collectors (government and businesses) must also offer assurance that people’s real identity will be concealed.

It is the responsibility of the government and the office of the Privacy Commissioner to ensure all personal information is managed appropriately.

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Transparency and data security

Our study also found that factors such as peer and social influence, regulatory pressures and previous experiences with privacy loss underlie people’s readiness to adopt contact-tracing apps.

The findings reveal that people expect regulatory protection if they are to use contact-tracing apps. This confirms the need for laws and regulations with strict penalties for those who collect, use, disclose or decrypt collected data for any purpose other than contact tracing.

The New Zealand government is working with third-party developers to complete the integration of other apps by the end of December to enable the exchange of digital contact-tracing information from different apps and technologies.

The Privacy Commissioner has already endorsed the bluetooth upgrade of the official NZ COVID Tracer app because of its focus on users’ privacy. And the Ministry of Health aims to release the source code for the app so New Zealanders can see how their personal data has been managed.

Throughout the summer, the government and ministry should emphasise the importance of using the contact-tracing app and assure New Zealanders about the security and privacy of their personal data.

Adoption of contact-tracing apps is no silver bullet in the battle against COVID-19, but it is a crucial element in New Zealand’s collective public health response to the global pandemic.

Farkhondeh Hassandoust, Lecturer, Auckland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COVID-19 slashed health-care use by more than one-third across the globe. But the news isn’t all bad

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Ray Moynihan, Bond University and Loai Albarqouni, Bond University

It’s no secret the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives. One is how often we access health care.

We’ve conducted what we believe is the first systematic review on this topic, bringing together studies documenting changes to health-care use during COVID-19 from around the world.

We found a 37% reduction across all parts of the health system, from February to May this year, compared to the same period in previous years.

Many people will suffer as a result of having missed out on lifesaving care, such as for heart disease or cancer. But others may benefit, by avoiding care they did not need in the first place.

Dramatic drops across all categories

Together with a global team of researchers and doctors, we identified 81 studies from 20 countries, including Australia. It’s important to note our work is currently undergoing peer review, although in keeping with much pandemic-related research, it’s available as a preprint.

Between February and May 2020, those studies reported on around 7 million health services, such as having a scan or an operation, compared to roughly 11 million in the same period the year before.

Overall, there was a 37% median reduction across all categories of health care. Visits to seek care, such as going to a GP or the emergency department fell by 42%; admissions to hospital dropped 28%; the use of diagnostic tests fell 31%; and the use of treatments, such as procedures to treat heart disease, dropped by 30%.

Fewer people are presenting to emergency departments around the world during the pandemic.
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One of the biggest individual studies in our review found a 42% reduction in visits to all United States emergency departments during April. Weekly visits fell from 2.1 million in 2019 to just 1.2 million in 2020. For visits among children the drop was 72%.

A smaller study in Australia found a 37% fall in emergency department visits at two hospitals in Victoria during April.

There are many possible reasons for these trends. For example, people may have stayed away from hospitals for fear of contracting COVID-19. People have also been unable to access some types of health care, as services like elective surgery were suspended.

Rates have bounced back in many places, but some remain significantly lower than previous years. Total admissions to hospitals in New South Wales, for example, were still down in the most recently available figures (up to the end of June).

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In a small number of studies we also found some things increased, including treatments for acute stroke. And future studies will likely find large increases in services such as telehealth.

Reductions are greater for less severe illness

Many of the studies in our review found reductions in use were greater for people with milder illness. That US study found the biggest fall in emergency department attendance was for people with abdominal pain.

Likewise, the Australian study found bigger falls among those with the least acute problems. For example, attendance was lower than expected for people with gastroenteritis and wrist fractures — but there was no change in category 1 triage patients (the most severe who require urgent attention).

Notably, several studies found larger reductions in admission for milder forms of heart attacks than for more severe forms. A large English study in late March found national admissions for the more severe form dropped 23%, while admissions for the milder form dropped 42%.

In terms of mental health, a study from Paris found a 55% reduction in emergency visits in the first four weeks of lockdown, but with greater reductions in visits for anxiety and stress, and smaller reductions for psychotic disorders.

At the height of the pandemic, doctors in Northern Italy found a 68% drop in presentations to children’s emergency departments. The reduction in attendance for the “white” triage category, the minor conditions which don’t require a doctor, was 89%.

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An opportunity to reduce unneeded care

Clearly many people will have been harmed by missing out on needed care. As the authors of the English study on heart attack admissions made clear, public campaigns are important to assure people that visiting hospital is safe. Reluctance to call an ambulance when experiencing severe symptoms, they write, results in “unnecessary deaths and disability”.

But many experts around the world are also seeing this crisis as a potential opportunity to wind back unnecessary care, and to free up resources for those most in need.

The Italian doctors who found significantly fewer children presenting to hospital with mild complaints suggested this has freed resources to “provide critical services to patients suffering from medical emergencies in a timely manner”.

Studies in our review showed fewer children are presenting to hospital during COVID-19.
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There’s already a lot of evidence about overuse of medical services and overdiagnosis, also known as low-value care. Examples include the inappropriate use of antibiotics and opioids, unnecessary diagnoses of prostate cancer, and the overuse of CT scans for children.

As health systems continue responding to the pandemic and deal with the urgent backlog of care, addressing this harmful waste becomes even more pressing.

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Commentators in the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, and influential doctors’ groups, have echoed this view.

The tragedy of the pandemic has underscored the importance of reducing unnecessary and harmful care, and offers us a real opportunity to address this problem.

Ray Moynihan, Assistant Professor, Bond University and Loai Albarqouni, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Bond University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Distress, depression and drug use: young people fear for their future after the bushfires

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Amy Lykins, University of New England

This week, the bushfire royal commission is due to hand down its findings. Already, the commission’s officials have warned the status quo is “no longer enough to defend us from the impact of global warming”.

Australia’s young people appear to know this all too well. Preliminary findings from our recent research show many young people are worried about the future. And those directly exposed to the Black Summer bushfires suffered mental health problems long after the flames went out.

Young people with direct exposure to the bushfires reported significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety, and more drug and alcohol use, than those not directly exposed.

It’s clear that along with the other catastrophic potential harm caused by climate change, the mental health of young people is at risk. We must find effective ways to help young people cope with climate change anxiety.

Concern about the future

Our yet-to-be published study was conducted between early March and early June this year. It involved 740 young people in New South Wales between the ages of 16 and 25 completing a series of standardised questionnaires about their current emotional state, and their concerns about climate change.

Our early findings were presented at the International Association of People-Environment Studies (IAPS) conference online earlier this year.

Some 57% of respondents lived in metropolitan areas and 43% in rural or regional areas. About 78.3% were female, about 20.4% male and around 1% preferred not to say.

Overall, just over 18% of the respondents had been directly exposed to the bushfires over the past year. About the same percentage had been directly exposed to drought in that period, and more than 83% were directly exposed to bushfire smoke.

Our preliminary results showed respondents with direct exposure to the Black Summer bushfires reported significantly higher levels of depression, anxiety, stress, adjustment disorder symptoms, and drug and alcohol use than those not directly exposed to these bushfires.

Many of the respondents were clearly concerned about the future.
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Many young people were clearly concerned about the future. One 16 year old female respondent from a rural/regional area told us:

From day to day, if it crosses my mind I do get a bit distressed […] knowing that not enough is being done to stop or slow down the effects of climate change is what makes me very distressed as our future and future generations are going to have to deal with this problem.

Another 24 year old female respondent from a rural/regional area said:

It makes me feel incredibly sad. Sad when I think about the animals it will effect [sic]. Sad when I think about the world my son is growing up in. Sad to think that so many people out there do not believe it is real and don’t care how their actions effect [sic] the planet, and all of us. Sad that the people in the position to do something about it, won’t.

Young people directly exposed to drought also showed higher levels of anxiety and stress than non-exposed youth.

‘I feel like climate change is here now’

Those with direct exposure to bushfires were more likely than non-exposed young people to believe climate change was:

• going to affect them or people they knew
• likely to affect areas near where they lived
• likely to affect them in the nearer future.

Both groups were equally likely — and highly likely — to believe that the environment is fragile and easily damaged by human activity, and that serious damage from human activity is already occurring and could soon have catastrophic consequences for both nature and humans.

One 23 year old female respondent from a metropolitan area told us:

I feel like climate change is here now and is just getting worse and worse as time goes on.

One 19 year old male respondent from a metropolitan area said:

I feel scared because of what will happen to my future kids, that they may not have a good future because I feel that this planet won’t last any longer because of our wasteful activities.

When asked how climate change makes them feel, answers varied. Some were not at all concerned (with a minority questioning whether it was even happening). Others reported feeling scared, worried, anxious, sad, angry, nervous, concerned for themselves and/or future generations, depressed, terrified, confused, and helpless.

One 16 year old female respondent in a metropolitan area told us:

I feel quite angry because the people who should be doing something about it aren’t because it won’t affect them in the future but it will affect me.

Though they were slightly more upbeat about their own futures and the future of humanity, a significant proportion expressed qualified or no hope, with consistent criticisms about humanity’s selfishness and lack of willpower to make needed behavioural changes.

One 21 year old female respondent from a metropolitan area said she felt:

a bit dissappointed [sic], people have the chance to help and take action, but they just don’t care. I feel sad as the planet will eventually react to the damage we have done, and by then, it will be too late.

Many participants listed COVID-19 as an extra stressor in their life.
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Extra stressors

Many participants listed COVID-19 as an extra stressor in their life. One 18 year old female said:

Slightly unrelated but after seeing all of the impacts on a lot of people during the COVID-19 pandemic, all of my hope for humanity is gone.

A 25 year old woman told us:

Due to the fact of this COVID stuff, we are not going to be able to do a lot of activitys (sic) that we did before this virus shit happen (sic).

A 16 year old male said:

At present with how people have reacted over the COVID-19 virus there is no hope for humanity. Everyone has become selfish and entitled.

Irrespective of bushfire exposure, respondents reported experiencing moderate levels of depression, moderate to severe anxiety and mild stress. They also reported drug and alcohol use at levels that, according to the UNCOPE substance use screening tool, suggested cause for concern.

What does this mean?

We are still analysing the data we collected, but our preliminary results strongly suggest climate change is linked to how hopeful young people feel about the future.

We are already locked into a significant degree of warming — the only questions are just how bad will it get and how quickly.

Young people need better access to mental health services and support. It’s clear we must find effective ways to help young people build psychological resilience to bushfires, and other challenges climate change will bring.

University of New England researchers Suzanne Cosh, Melissa Parsons, Belinda Craig
and Clara Murray contributed to this research. Don Hine from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand was also a contributor.

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If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Amy Lykins, Associate Professor, University of New England

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COVID changed the way we use drugs and alcohol — now it’s time to properly invest in treatment

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Nicole Lee, Curtin University

During crises and disasters, alcohol and other drug use often changes. But the changes are not straightforward and impacts may be different for different groups of people.

There doesn’t seem to have been significant overall increases or decreases in alcohol or other drug use during the COVID-19 pandemic, but some groups are at increased risk. And access to treatment is more limited for those who need it.

It’s a complex picture

There’s a bit of data around, but the picture is still not quite clear.
As researchers from the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University have argued in an editorial published today, we need more research to understand the influence of the pandemic on use.

There were some early indicators of increases in Australians’ alcohol consumption as the pandemic hit, possibly related to increased stress. But that effect seemed to reduce as we settled into the new normal.

At the beginning of COVID-19 restrictions in March, Commonwealth Bank reported spending had increased on alcohol, but this was then reversed in April.

And in April, a study by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education found that most people who had stockpiled alcohol reported drinking more. Also around the same time, Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed more people had increased their drinking (14.4%) than had decreased it (9.5%).

By May, the Australian National University found more people had decreased their drinking (27%) than had increased it (20%). The Global Drug Survey between May and June found similar results among the mostly young people who responded.

However, alcohol use seemed to increase among some groups, possibly those who are more vulnerable to harms.

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In both the ABS and ANU studies, more women had increased their drinking than decreased it, which seemed to be related to higher stress linked to increased responsibilities at home.

In a survey of people who use illicit drugs, more people increased (41%) than decreased (33%) drinking. And among people who inject drugs around 11% reported increased drinking.

There have also been indicators that family violence has increased during this time. Alcohol and other drug use is a risk factor for family violence.

We need more data about heavy drug use

Since the onset of the pandemic, two studies found cannabis use had increased but other drug use had decreased or was stable. The respondents were mostly young, used for recreational purposes and were not dependent nor did they have serious problems.

Reductions in use of drugs like MDMA and cocaine, which are associated with festivals and parties, are not surprising since these large events have been restricted for months.

Two studies suggested cannabis use was on the rise, but we still need more and better data on how the pandemic has impacted heavy users.
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Most of the research hasn’t involved people who are heavy or dependent users, so we don’t know much about changes in use in these groups.

One study of people who inject drugs (who tend to use more regularly) reported some changes to availability and purity of some drugs, and small changes in use, but again some people increased and some decreased their use.

With physical distancing and lockdowns, it’s likely more people used alone or with fewer people. This means if anything goes wrong, help is further away.

Telehealth for drug treatment?

A survey of treatment services found that among services that reported changes in demand, most had an increase. Most services also reported that mental health problems, family violence and financial stress had all increased among people who use their services. These factors can make treatment more complex.

There is some evidence fewer people accessed medication treatment for opioids during the restrictions, like methadone.

COVID-19 restrictions have changed the way many services offer treatment. Most residential rehabilitation services have reduced the number of places available so they can ensure physical distancing.

Many treatment services are reporting increased demand.
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Before COVID-19 there were already long waiting lists for residential rehabilitation, so with more than 70% of services reporting reduced capacity, people may have found it harder to access residential treatment.

Non-residential services (like counselling or day programs) haven’t significantly reduced the number of people they see, and most have partially or fully moved to telehealth.

As a result, around 35% of services said fewer people missed appointments. This might be due to the easier access telehealth provides, including the reduced travel time.

However, around 25% of services said more people missed appointments. Anecdotal interviews suggest some of this might be due to difficulty transitioning to online appointments. One person said: “I know they are on Zoom but I don’t know how to use it”.

These adaptations are more complex than they appear. The time and effort required for services to make significant changes takes time away from providing treatment.

The move to telehealth is a significant one, requiring additional hardware and software, training of staff, and help for people who use the service to work out how to use the technology. Things like ensuring confidentiality can be more difficult when someone is receiving counselling at home with family around, for example.

Piecemeal funding for treatment services

The alcohol and other drug sector was already significantly under-resourced and struggling to meet existing demand before COVID-19.

In April, federal health minister Greg Hunt announced A$6 million in funding for alcohol and other drug services. Just over half of this was allocated to three organisations to increase online access to support services. The rest went to information and awareness campaigns. But no funds were set aside for existing treatment services to make COVID-19 related changes to their services.

Various state governments have allocated some funding to support alcohol and other drug services to adjust to COVID-19:

• Tasmania released a total of A$450,000 to help services transition to telehealth

• Western Australia allocated a total of A$350,000 for specialist alcohol and other drug services to maintain services amid the pandemic

• Victoria and South Australia announced additional support to help people access medication treatment.

Further funding is needed to ensure services can continue to provide COVID-safe services.

It’s important for people who use alcohol and other drugs, and for the public, that alcohol and other drug treatment is well-supported to continue to operate during these changes. We know treatment is cost-effective, reduces crime and increases participation in the community. For every dollar invested in drug treatment, $7 is saved to the community.

Getting help

If you’re worried about your own or someone else’s alcohol or other drug use, you can get help by phoning the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline on 1800 250 015.

You can also access support online through CounsellingOnline, Hello Sunday Morning and SMART Recovery.

You may also be eligible to access one of the new telehealth services. Talk to your GP to find out more.

Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Disasters expose gaps in emergency services’ social media use

Tan Yigitcanlar, Queensland University of Technology; Ashantha Goonetilleke, Queensland University of Technology, and Nayomi Kankanamge, Queensland University of Technology

Australia has borne the brunt of several major disasters in recent years, including drought, bushfires, floods and cyclones. The increasing use of social media is changing how we prepare for and respond to these disasters. Not only emergency services but also their social media are now much-sought-after sources of disaster information and warnings.

We studied Australian emergency services’ social media use in times of disaster. Social media can provide invaluable and time-critical information to both emergency services and communities at risk. But we also found problems.

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How do emergency services use social media?

The 2019-20 Australian bushfires affected 80% of the population directly or indirectly. Social media were widely used to spread awareness of the bushfire disaster and to raise funds – albeit sometimes controversially – to help people in need.

The escalating use and importance of social media in disaster management raises an important question:

How effective are social media pages of Australian state emergency management organisations in meeting community expectations and needs?

To answer this question, QUT’s Urban Studies Lab investigated the community engagement approaches of social media pages maintained by various Australian emergency services. We placed Facebook and Twitter pages of New South Wales State Emergency Services (NSW-SES), Victoria State Emergency Services (VIC-SES) and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QLD-FES) under the microscope.

Our study made four key findings.

First, emergency services’ social media pages are intended to:

• disseminate warnings
• provide an alternative communication channel
• receive rescue and recovery requests
• collect information about the public’s experiences
• raise disaster awareness
• build collective intelligence
• encourage volunteerism
• express gratitude to emergency service staff and volunteers
• raise funds for those in need.

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Examples of emergency services’ social media posts are shown below.

NSW-SES collecting data from the public through their posts.
Facebook

VIC-SES sharing weather warnings to inform the public.
Facebook

QLD-FES posting fire condition information to increase public awareness.
Facebook

QLD-FES showing the direction of a cyclone and warning the community.
Facebook

Second, Facebook pages of emergency services attract more community attention than Twitter pages. Services need to make their Twitter pages more attractive as, unlike Facebook, Twitter allows streamlined data download for social media analytics. A widely used Twitter page of emergency service means more data for analysis and potentially more accurate policies and actions.

Third, Australia lacks a legal framework for the use of social media in emergency service operations. Developing these frameworks will help organisations maximise its use, especially in the case of financial matters such as donations.

Fourth, the credibility of public-generated information can sometimes be questionable. Authorities need to be able to respond rapidly to such information to avoid the spread of misinformation or “fake news” on social media.

Services could do more with social media

Our research highlighted that emergency services could use social media more effectively. We do not see these services analysing social media data to inform their activities before, during and after disasters.

In another study on the use of social media analytics for disaster management, we developed a novel approach to show how emergency services can identify disaster-affected areas using real-time social media data. For that study, we collected Twitter data with location information on the 2010-11 Queensland floods. We were able to identify disaster severity by analysing the emotional or sentiment values of tweets.

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This work generated the disaster severity map show below. The map is over 90% accurate to actual figures in the report of the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry.

Disaster severity map created through Twitter analytics.
Authors

Concerns about using social media to manage disaster

The first highly voiced concern about social media use in disaster management is the digital divide. While the issue of underrepresented people and communities remains important, the use of technology is spreading widely. There were 3.4 billion social media users worldwide in 2019, and the growth in numbers is accelerating.

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Online tools can help people in disasters, but do they represent everyone?

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Besides, many Australian cities and towns are investing in smart city strategies and infrastructures. These localities provide free public Wi-Fi connections. And almost 90% of Australians now own a smart phone.

The second concern is information accuracy or “fake news” on social media. Evidently, sharing false information and rumours compromises the information social media provides. Social media images and videos tagged with location information can provide more reliable, eye-witness information.

Another concern is difficulty in receiving social media messages from severely affected areas. For instance, the disaster might have brought down internet or 4G/5G coverage, or people might have been evacuated from areas at risk. This might lead to limited social media posts from the actual disaster zone, with increasing numbers of posts from the places people are relocated.

In such a scenario, alternative social media analytics are on offer. We can use content analysis and sentiment analysis to determine the disaster location and impact.

How to make the most of social media

Social media and its applications are generating new and innovative ways to manage disasters and reduce their impacts. These include:

• increasing community trust in emergency services by social media profiling
• crowd-sourcing the collection and sharing of disaster information
• creating awareness by incorporating gamification applications in social media
• using social media data to detect disaster intensity and hotspot locations
• running real-time data analytics.

In sum, social media could become a mainstream information provider for disaster management. The need is likely to become more pressing as human-induced climate change increases the severity and frequency of disasters.

Today, as we confront the COVID-19 pandemic, social media analytics are helping to ease its impacts. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are greatly reducing processing time for social media analytics. We believe the next-generation AI will enable us to undertake real-time social media analytics more accurately.

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Tan Yigitcanlar, Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, Queensland University of Technology; Ashantha Goonetilleke, Professor, Queensland University of Technology, and Nayomi Kankanamge, PhD Candidate, School of Built Environment, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Control, cost and convenience determine how Australians use the technology in their homes

Who’s the boss in a smart home?
Shutterstock/Tracy ben

Kate Letheren, Queensland University of Technology; Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Queensland University of Technology; Rory Mulcahy, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Ryan McAndrew, Queensland University of Technology

We have access to plenty of technology that can serve us by automating more of our daily lives, doing everything from adjusting the temperature of our homes to (eventually) putting groceries in our fridges.

But do we want these advancements? And – importantly – do we trust them?

Our research, published earlier this year in the European Journal of Marketing, looked at the roles technology plays in Australian homes. We found three main ways people assign control to, and trust in, their technology.

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Most people still want some level of control. That’s an important message to developers if they want to keep increasing the uptake of smart home technology, yet to reach 25% penetration in Australia.

How smart do we want a home?

Smart homes are modern homes that have appliances or electronic devices that can be controlled remotely by the owner. Examples include lights controlled via apps, smart locks and security systems, and even smart coffee machines that remember your brew of choice and waking time.

But we still don’t understand consumer interactions with these technologies, and to speed up their adoption we need to know they type of value they can offer.

We conducted a set of studies in conjunction with CitySmart and a group of distributors, and we asked people about their smart technology preferences in the context of electricity management (managing appliances and utility plans).

We conducted 45 household interviews involving 116 people across Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and Tasmania. Then we surveyed 1,345 Australian households. The interviews uncovered and explored the social roles assigned to technologies, while the survey allowed us to collect additional information and find out how the broader Australian population felt about these technology types.

We found households attribute social roles and rules to smart home technologies. This makes sense: the study of anthropomorphism tells us we tend to humanise things we want to understand. We humanise in order to trust (remember Clippy, the Microsoft paperclip with whom we all had a love-hate relationship?).

These social roles and rules determine whether (or how) households will adopt the technologies.

Tech plays three roles

Most people want technology to serve them (95.6% of interviewees, about 19 out of 20). Those who didn’t want any technology were classified as “resisters” and made up less than 5% of the respondents.

We found the role that technology can play in households tended to fall into one of three categories, the intern, the assistant and the manager:

• the intern (passive technology)
  Technology exists to bring me information, but shouldn’t be making any decisions on its own. Real-life example: Switch your Thinking provides an SMS-based tip service. This mode of use was preferred in 22-35% of households.

• the assistant (interactive technology)
  Technology should not only bring me information, but add value by helping me make decisions or interact. Real-life example: Homesmart from Ergon provides useful data to support consumers in their decisions; including remotely controlling appliances or monitoring electricity budget. This mode of use was preferred in 41-51% of households.

• the manager (proactive technology)
  Technology should analyse information and make decisions itself, in order to make my life more efficient. Real-life example: Tibber, which learns your home’s electricity-usage pattern and helps you make adjustments. This mode of use was preferred in 22-24% of households.

Who’s the boss?

According to our study, while smart technology roles can change, the customer always remains the CEO. As CEO, they determine whether full control is retained or delegated to the technology.

For example, while two consumers might install a set of smart lights, one may engage by directly controlling lights via the app, while the other delegates this to the app – allowing it to choose based on sunset times when lights should be on.

Roles for consumer and smart technology – the consumer always remains the CEO, but technology can be viewed as an intern, assistant, or manager.
Natalie Sketcher, Visual Designer

Notably, time pressure was evident as justification for each of the three options. Passive technology saved time by not wasting it on fiddling with smart tech. Interactive technology gave information and controlled interactions for busy families. Proactive technology relieved overwhelmed households from managing their own electricity.

All households had clear motivation for their choices.

Households that chose passive technology were motivated by simplicity, cost-effectiveness and privacy concerns. One study participant in this group said:

Less hassle. Don’t like tech controlling my life.

Households prioritising interactive technology were looking for a balance of convenience and control, technology that provides:

A good support but allows me to maintain overall control and decision-making.

Households keen on proactive technology wanted set and forget abilities to allow the household to focus on the more important things in life. They sought:

Having the process looked after and managed for us as we don’t have the time to do it ourselves.

This raises the question: why did we see such differences in household preference?

Trust in tech

According to our research, this comes down to the relationship between trust, risk, and the need for control. It’s just that these motivations that are expressed differently in different households.

While one household sees delegating their choices as a safe bet (that is, trusting the technology to save them from the risk of electricity over-spend), another would see retaining all choices as the true expression of being in control (that is, believing humans should be trusted with decisions, with technology providing input only when asked).

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Read more:
Smart speakers are everywhere — and they’re listening to more than you think

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This is not unusual, nor is this the first study to find the importance of our sense of trust and risk in making technology decisions.

It’s not that consumers don’t want advancements to serve them – they do – but this working relationship requires clear roles and ground rules. Only then can there be trust.

For smart home technology developers, the message is clear: households will continue to expect control and customisation features so that the technology serves them – either as an intern, an assistant, or a manager – while they remain the CEO.

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If you’re interested to discover your working relationship with technology, complete this three-question online quiz.

Kate Letheren, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology; Rebekah Russell-Bennett, Social Marketing Professor, School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology; Rory Mulcahy, Lecturer of Marketing, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Ryan McAndrew, Social Marketer & Market Researcher, Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australians want to support government use and sharing of data, but don’t trust their data will be safe

A new survey reveals community attitudes towards the use of personal data by government and researchers.
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Nicholas Biddle, Australian National University and Matthew Gray, Australian National University

Never has more data been held about us by government or companies that we interact with. Never has this data been so useful for analytical purposes.

But with such opportunities come risks and challenges. If personal data is going to be used for research and policy purposes, we need effective data governance arrangements in place, and community support (social licence) for this data to be used.

The ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods has recently undertaken a survey of a representative sample of Australians to learn their views about about how personal data is used, stored and shared.

While Australians report a high level of support for the government to use and share data, there is less confidence that the government has the right safeguards in place or can be trusted with people’s data.

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Read more:
Soft terms like ‘open’ and ‘sharing’ don’t tell the true story of your data

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What government should do with data

In the ANUPoll survey of more than 2,000 Australian adults (available for download at the Australian Data Archive) we asked:

On the whole, do you think the Commonwealth Government should or should not be able to do the following?

Six potential data uses were given.

Do you think the Commonwealth Government should or should not be able to … ?
ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods Working Paper

Overall, Australians are supportive of the Australian government using data for purposes such as allocating resources to those who need it the most, and ensuring people are not claiming benefits to which they are not entitled.

They were slightly less supportive about providing data to researchers, though most still agreed or strongly agreed that it was worthwhile.

Perceptions of government data use

Community attitudes to the use of data by government are tied to perceptions about whether the government can keep personal data secure, and whether it’s behaving in a transparent and trustworthy manner.

To measure views of the Australian population on these issues, respondents were told:

Following are a number of statements about the Australian government and the data it holds about Australian residents.

They were then asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that the Australian government:

• could respond quickly and effectively to a data breach
• has the ability to prevent data being hacked or leaked
• can be trusted to use data responsibly
• is open and honest about how data are collected, used and shared.

Respondents did not express strong support for the view that the Australian government is able to protect people’s data, or is using data in an appropriate way.

To what extent do you agree or disagree that the Australian Government … ?
ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods Working Paper

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Read more:
What are tech companies doing about ethical use of data? Not much

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We also asked respondents to:

[think] about the data about you that the Australian Government might currently hold, such as your income tax data, social security records, or use of health services.

We then asked for their level of concern about five specific forms of data breaches or misuse of their own personal data.

We found that there are considerable concerns about different forms of data breaches or misuse.

More than 70% of respondents were concerned or very concerned about the accidental release of personal information, deliberate hacking of government systems, and data being provided to consultants or private sector organisations who may misuse the data.

Level of concern about specific forms of data breaches or misuse of a person’s own data …
ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods Working Paper

More than 60% were concerned or very concerned about their data being used by the Australian government to make unfair decisions. And more than half were concerned or very concerned about their data being provided to academic researchers who may misuse their information.

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Read more:
Facebook’s data lockdown is a disaster for academic researchers

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Trust in government to manage data

The data environment in Australia is changing rapidly. More digital information about us is being created, captured, stored and shared than ever before, and there is a greater capacity to link information across multiple sources of data, and across multiple time periods.

While this creates opportunities, it also creates the risk that the data will be used in a way that is not in our best interests.

There is policy debate at the moment about how data should be used and shared. If we don’t make use of the data available, that has costs in terms of worse service delivery and less effective government. So, locking data up is not a cost-free option.

But sharing data or making data available in a way that breaches people’s privacy can be harmful to individuals, and may generate a significant (and legitimate) public backlash. This would reduce the chance of data being made available in any form, and mean that the potential benefits of improving the wellbeing of Australians are lost.

If government, researchers and private companies want to be able to make use of the richness of the new data age, there is an urgent and continuing need to build up trust across the population, and to put policies in place that reassure consumers and users of government services.

Nicholas Biddle, Associate Professor, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University and Matthew Gray, Director, ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Turkey blocks Twitter as people use social media to share corruption evidence

Gigaom

Turkish officials have blocked access to Twitter(s twtr), after people used the microblogging service to disseminate evidence of alleged corruption at the top of government.

The internet was already pretty restricted in Turkey before the passage of a law this past February, allowing local telecoms regulator TIB to demand the blockage of any website within 4 hours, without a court order. The law also requires ISPs to store web usage data for 2 years so authorities can go through it if they want.

According to AFP, it was only a matter of hours between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threatening to “wipe out” Twitter in Turkey, and the blocks coming into force. On Friday, shortly after the blockade drew widespread condemnation, Turkish President Abdullah Gül said (via Twitter, ironically) that he doesn’t approve of blocking entire social media platforms. Turkey’s bar association has also filed a legal challenge.

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Egypt police freed to use deadly force amid fears protest death toll will top 1,000

Bible Apps in the Pew

The link below is to an article that reports on the increasing use of tablets, smartphones and other gadgets in the pew during church services as modern technology impacts at the local level.

Do you use a digital version of the Bible during church services? If so, what do you use? Please share in the comments.

For more visit:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/the-bible-gets-an-upgrade/