[-empyre-] Week 1 Introduction: Compulsion, Ethics, and Mobile App Development

[Katie Shilton]

I'm happy to be joining the discussion on empyre this week!

My research is in technology and design ethics, and recently I've been
focused on the culture of ethical debate and self-regulation in mobile
application development. Mobile app development interests me because apps
are largely unregulated, and developers are extremely diverse, ranging from
single-person shops to huge companies. Many mobile app developers are
contractors who must navigate both worlds. This makes app developers
interesting ethical agents, as they are often in a position to make
decisions with ethical import: how much data to collect, how long to keep
that data, whether to sell it; what sorts of apps to develop and what
demographics to target (or exclude); and most relevant to this discussion,
whether and how to design for flow, engagement, and compulsion.

As I was reflecting on the theme after talking with Patrick, I kept
thinking about a Q&A session I attended at an Android developer conference
last year. The topic was privacy, but (as I've noticed privacy
conversations are prone to do in these venues) conversation soon veered
into other ethical issues. A developer stood up and expressed his anxiety
that, by designing an Android game that would be popular, successful, and
also profitable, he would cross into the complicated ethical territory of
encouraging addiction and gambling. I am really interested in the
challenges that developers face when compulsion is a design value that
equates with success. As Patrick's introduction mentioned, Schüll's work is
an exemplary exploration of industries that deal with this tension. I've
now become interested in how developers who don't think of themselves as
part of the gaming industry grapple with these tensions in their work
practice.

And indeed, as Patrick's post on the word "compulsion" indicates, designing
for exorbitant desire has complex ethical valence. As Murat's reply
suggested, designing for compulsion could have positive connotations. The
positive side of compulsion is often engaged in discussions of
"gamification" as a tool for motivation.

For example, something that crossed my path recently: a gamified toothbrush
app for kids that was *too* successful in employing game features:
http://gizmodo.com/kids-are-getting-addicted-to-an-app-enabled-toothbrush-1730527892

Thanks for having me this week, and looking forward to the discussion!

Katie

-- 
Katie Shilton
Assistant Professor
College of Information Studies
University of Maryland, College Park
kshilton at umd.edu
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