Socially adaptive electronic partners for improved support of children's values: An empirical study with a location-sharing mobile app

Mobile location-sharing technology is increasingly being used by parents to locate their children. Research shows that these technologies may pose risks to important user values such as privacy and responsibility, while they aim to promote others such as family security. As a solution, we proposed the use of Social Commitment (SC) models for governing the sharing and receiving of data. A social commitment represents an agreement between two people about which data should (not) be shared and received in which situation. We hypothesize that the use of SCs in mobile location sharing applications provides improved support for user values since it allows for a more flexible, context-aware location sharing. In this paper, we present a user study to test this hypothesis. The study focuses on primary school children ([Formula presented]) as the main target group, who's values may be demoted through the use of location-sharing technology. Children were provided with two versions of a mobile location sharing app: one with basic check-in functionality –the basic app –and one augmented with an SC model, which we call a Socially Adaptive Electronic Partner (SAEP). Our findings suggest, among other things that the SAEP would provide improved support for children's values compared to the basic app.