The more interactive a mobile app or artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is, the more playful they are perceived to be, with users letting their guard down and risking their privacy, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State.
The researchers studied the effect of mobile app interactivity on users' vigilance toward privacy risks during the sign-up process, and how this shapes their attitudes toward the app and their willingness to keep using it. The team found that interactivity motivates users to engage with the app by fostering a heightened sense of playfulness and lowering their privacy concerns. The findings, published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology, have implications for user privacy in an era increasingly dominated by mobile apps and AI chatbots that are designed to be fun and engaging, according to senior author S. Shyam Sundar, Evan Pugh University Professor and the James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects at Penn State.
"I think, in general, there's been an increase in the extent to which apps and AI tools pry into user data - ostensibly to better serve users and to personalize information for them," Sundar said. "In this study, we found that interactivity does not make users pause and think, as we would expect, but rather makes them feel more immersed in the playful aspect of the app and be less concerned about privacy. Companies could exploit this vulnerability to extract private information without users being totally aware of it."
In an online experiment, the researchers asked 216 participants to go through the sign-up process for a simulated fitness app. Participants were randomly assigned to different versions of the app with varying levels of two different types of interactivity: "message interactivity," ranging from simple questions and answers to highly inter-connected chats, where the app's messaging builds on the user's previous responses; and "modality interactivity," referring to options such as clicking and zooming in on images.
Then the participants answered questions about their experience with the app's sign-up process by rating perceived playfulness and privacy concerns on seven-point scales to indicate how strongly they agree or disagree with specific statements, such as "I felt using the app is fun" and "I would be concerned that the information I submitted to the app could be misused." The researchers examined the responses to identify the effect of both type and extent of interactivity on user perceptions of the app.
