Tracking Fitness or Sickness - Combining Technology Acceptance and Privacy Research to Investigate the Actual Adoption of Fitness Trackers

Abstract

Personal data is often collected, processed and utilized without the knowledge of the information system's user. With regard to the enormous value of personalized data for companies as well as consumers' tendency to unreflectively disclose their data, privacy concerns have been an essential topic for researchers since the mid-1990s. However, established research models of wearable IS-technologies are inadequate to comprehensively investigate the issue of privacy and its effects on acceptance variables. Therefore, the following study aims to empirically validate a research model which considers privacy concerns as a central construct in predicting the actual usage of fitness trackers. The results of our investigation underline the vital role of privacy concerns for the acceptance of fitness trackers and imply that the current providers' advertising is insufficient in meeting the consumers' needs.

The Adoption of Contact-Tracing Applications and the Integration of a Health Pass

“…Our results also highlight a significant negative influence of distrust towards the government in its management of the epidemic, while prior studies found no significant influence of trust in institutions or the government (Hassandoust et al, 2021;Kurtaliqi et al, 2022;Reith et al, 2021;Thiée et al, 2021). This finding is all the more important when considering that the distrust that was present in the early phases of the pandemic in France (Rowe, 2020) may have been reinforced by restrictive measures that were enacted after our survey.…”

“…For instance, social benefits were shown to influence the intention or decision to adopt a CTA in Germany (Trang et al, 2020), in the United States (Hassandoust et al, 2021), in Sweden (Hauff & Nilsson, 2021), in Ireland (Fox et al, 2021), and in Slovenia (Trkman et al, 2021). Conversely, studies in France (Kurtaliqi et al, 2022), the U.S. (Hassandoust et al, 2021) or Germany (Reith et al, 2021 ;Thiée et al, 2021) could not show a significant influence of institutional trust on the adoption of CTAs. The literature draws no clear picture with regard to other variables due to differences in models and measures, and most studies on CTA adoption were carried out in the U.S., Western and Central Europe, and Australia.…”

“…In situations of uncertainty, trust plays a key role in determining users' risk-taking behavior regarding technologies (Malhotra et al, 2004), including those developed and promoted by governments (Bélanger & Carter, 2008;Chan et al, 2010). However, research on the adoption of CTAs has yet to show any significant influence of institutional trust on their adoption (Hassandoust et al, 2021;Kurtaliqi et al, 2022;Reith et al, 2021;Thiée et al, 2021) except for a small influence of trust beliefs in an Australian study (Lin et al, 2021). The literature on trust offers a possible explanation for this limited influence by considering trust and distrust as two different variables instead of the two ends of a single continuum (Lewicki et al, 1998).…”

Curse or Blessing? Combining Personality Traits and Technology Acceptance to Investigate the Intention to Use of Digital Contact Tracing in Germany

“…For instance, during a crisis like COVID-19, perceived pressure, social influence, and the idea to be bounded to a peer group appear reasonable [14][15][16]. Referring to the CWA, individuals are likely to follow the advice of their peer group [78], even if they are not interested in the app itself [14]. The social pressure to adopt the CWA as well as popularity of the technology [79] increase its value.…”

How the introduction of the COVID-19 tracing apps affects future tracking technology adoption

“…To study privacy in such complex contextual settings, Smith, Dinev and Xu (2011) developed the APCO macro model. This model has been widely adapted and is used to explain the effects of privacy policies or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on privacy concerns (Paul, Scheibe, & Nilakanta, 2020) or to investigate how privacy concerns affect the usage of mobile payment solutions (Reith, Buck, Walther, Lis, & Eymann, 2019), social networking websites (Alashoor, Han, & Joseph, 2017) and fitness trackers (Reith, Buck, Lis, & Eymann, 2020). Our theoretical basis is twofold: Together with the APCO model, we use the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), since it has not only been one of the most prominent theories linking beliefs to behavior, but also since it has seen many successful applications in the fields of ethical aspects of technology use, consumer trust and privacy (Cheung & To, 2017; Jafarkarimi, Saadatdoost, Sim, & Hee, 2016).…”