Tracing Contacts With Mobile Phones to Curb the Pandemic:Topics and Stances in People’s Online Comments About the Official German Contact-Tracing App

Arzt, Steven; Poller, Andreas; Vallejo, Gisela

doi:10.1145/3411763.3451631

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…An intention-behavior gap has been identified in DCT uptake [ 11 ], but little is known about the actual experiences of people with the apps [ 16 ], especially over time, as there have been only few longitudinal studies in this regard [ 8 ]. Privacy has been found to be a major concern of people, possibly hindering app uptake [ 6 , 17 ], but the “privacy paradox” has been also acknowledged and investigated, where although people state being highly worried about their privacy, they do not act on their concerns [ 18 ]. Thus, more work is needed to understand people’s experiences with DCT and other factors, beyond privacy concerns, that may be involved in their adoption and sustained use over time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Trust and Changes in Use After a Year With the NHS COVID-19 Contact Tracing App in the United Kingdom: Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

et al. 2022

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Background Digital contact tracing (DCT) apps have been implemented as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Research has focused on understanding acceptance and adoption of these apps, but more work is needed to understand the factors that may contribute to their sustained use. This is key to public health because DCT apps require a high uptake rate to decrease the transmission of the virus within the general population. Objective This study aimed to understand changes in the use of the National Health Service Test & Trace (T&T) COVID-19 DCT app and explore how public trust in the app evolved over a 1-year period. Methods We conducted a longitudinal mixed methods study consisting of a digital survey in December 2020 followed by another digital survey and interview in November 2021, in which responses from 9 participants were explored in detail. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview transcripts. This paper focuses on the thematic analysis to unpack the reasoning behind participants’ answers. Results In this paper, 5 themes generated through thematic analysis are discussed: flaws in the T&T app, usefulness and functionality affecting trust in the app, low trust in the UK government, varying degrees of trust in other stakeholders, and public consciousness and compliance dropping over time. Mistrust evolved from participants experiencing sociotechnical flaws in the app and led to concerns about the app’s usefulness. Similarly, mistrust in the government was linked to perceived poor pandemic handling and the creation and procurement of the app. However, more variability in trust in other stakeholders was highlighted depending on perceived competence and intentions. For example, Big Tech companies (ie, Apple and Google), large hospitality venues, and private contractors were seen as more capable, but participants mistrust their intentions, and small hospitality venues, local councils, and the National Health Service (ie, public health system) were seen as well-intentioned but there is mistrust in their ability to handle pandemic matters. Participants reported complying, or not, with T&T and pandemic guidance to different degrees but, overall, observed a drop in compliance over time. Conclusions These findings contribute to the wider implications of changes in DCT app use over time for public health. Findings suggest that trust in the wider T&T app ecosystem could be linked to changes in the use of the app; however, further empirical and theoretical work needs to be done to generalize the results because of the small, homogeneous sample. Initial novelty effects occurred with the app, which lessened over time as public concern and media representation of the pandemic decreased and normalization occurred. Trust in the sociotechnical capabilities of the app, stakeholders involved, and salience maintenance of the T&T app in conjunction with other measures are needed for sustained use.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Trust and Changes in Use After a Year With the NHS COVID-19 Contact Tracing App in the United Kingdom: Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In fact, participants tended to have higher trust in the use of data and the app working as it should than in the behaviour of other people. There is some evidence then, that privacy concerns are put aside in the context of a pandemic [ 20 ], perhaps in trading for the greater good of public health; however, we would not go as far as to suggest that privacy is not important per se; indeed, research has shown that privacy was among the most debated topics about the German contact-tracing app [ 40 ]. Additionally, being able to verify and get explanations for what the app was doing was felt to be important and this showed a relationship to both actual trust and the importance of trust.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between trust and attitudes towards the COVID-19 digital contact-tracing app in the UK

Dowthwaite

Wagner²,

Babbage³

et al. 2022

PLoS ONE

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital contact-tracing has been employed in many countries to monitor and manage the spread of the disease. However, to be effective such a system must be adopted by a substantial proportion of the population; therefore, public trust plays a key role. This paper examines the NHS COVID-19 smartphone app, the digital contact-tracing solution in the UK. A series of interviews were carried out prior to the app’s release (n = 12) and a large scale survey examining attitudes towards the app (n = 1,001) was carried out after release. Extending previous work reporting high level attitudes towards the app, this paper shows that prevailing negative attitudes prior to release persisted, and affected the subsequent use of the app. They also show significant relationships between trust, app features, and the wider social and societal context. There is lower trust amongst non-users of the app and trust correlates to many other aspects of the app, a lack of trust could hinder adoption and effectiveness of digital contact-tracing. The design of technology requiring wide uptake, e.g., for public health, should embed considerations of the complexities of trust and the context in which the technology will be used.

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“…It is estimated that at the height of the recent wave the app has sent more than 600,000 self-isolation alerts in a single week in July 2021 alone ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57929162 ). Related to our research, Twitter was one of the websites used to explore attitudes to digital contact-tracing in Germany, where issues of privacy were among the most intensely discussed topics ( Arzt, Poller & Vallejo, 2021 ). The second example, the Ofqual algorithm used for calculating A Level grades in England and Wales in 2020, was initially brought in to replace examinations in the Covid-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical reflections on three popular computational linguistic approaches to examine Twitter discourses

Heaton

Clos

Nichele

et al. 2023

PeerJ Computer Science

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Although computational linguistic methods—such as topic modelling, sentiment analysis and emotion detection—can provide social media researchers with insights into online public discourses, it is not inherent as to how these methods should be used, with a lack of transparent instructions on how to apply them in a critical way. There is a growing body of work focusing on the strengths and shortcomings of these methods. Through applying best practices for using these methods within the literature, we focus on setting expectations, presenting trajectories, examining with context and critically reflecting on the diachronic Twitter discourse of two case studies: the longitudinal discourse of the NHS Covid-19 digital contact-tracing app and the snapshot discourse of the Ofqual A Level grade calculation algorithm, both related to the UK. We identified difficulties in interpretation and potential application in all three of the approaches. Other shortcomings, such the detection of negation and sarcasm, were also found. We discuss the need for further transparency of these methods for diachronic social media researchers, including the potential for combining these approaches with qualitative ones—such as corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis—in a more formal framework.

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Tracing Contacts With Mobile Phones to Curb the Pandemic:Topics and Stances in People’s Online Comments About the Official German Contact-Tracing App

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Understanding Trust and Changes in Use After a Year With the NHS COVID-19 Contact Tracing App in the United Kingdom: Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

Understanding Trust and Changes in Use After a Year With the NHS COVID-19 Contact Tracing App in the United Kingdom: Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

The relationship between trust and attitudes towards the COVID-19 digital contact-tracing app in the UK

Critical reflections on three popular computational linguistic approaches to examine Twitter discourses

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