The ethics of dietary apps
Technology, health, and the capability approach
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11238457 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Ryan (0000-0003-4850-0111, Wageningen University & Research, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 68 |
| Pages | 101873 |
| Publication date | 2022-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Technology in Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0160-791X • E-ISSN: 1879-3274 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.101873 |
| OpenAlex | W4206556775 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 28 |
Dietary apps are said to promote better eating habits, improve dietary knowledge, and awareness about nutrition. However, their use has also raised a number of ethical and social issues related to their impact on individual freedoms, for creating power asymmetries, restricting end-users from expanding their knowledge of health, nudging individuals, and even having harmful effects on people's health. This paper will use the capability approach methodology to explore some of the most common criticisms directed against dietary apps to identify what steps need to be taken to ensure individuals' freedoms are protected, and their health is ensured. While dietary apps democratise nutritional information, they must be developed and used in an ethically satisfactory way, that is respectful of environmental, social and individual differences among users (conversion factors). This paper will demonstrate that while some types of nudging within dietary apps are acceptable (because they are often used as a kind of ‘extended will’), app companies should not nudge individuals in agency-infringing, manipulative, or forceful ways (for their own economic benefit). Altogether, this paper will provide a user-centric methodology (the capability approach) to demonstrate how food technologies should incorporate and consider the end-user in their development and use
Agency (philosophy · Business · Internet privacy · Political science · Power (physics · Public relations · Sociology · Computer Science · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Mobile Health and mHealth Applications · Persona Design and Applications · Psychology · Marketing
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
The limits of liberty
Development as Capability Expansion
Capability and Well‐Being
The Heteronomy of Choice Architecture
Human Rights and Capabilities
What is Equality? Part 1
Manufacturing Responsibility
Health information technologies for patients with diabetes
Digital wellbeing tools through users lens
When nudge comes to shove
The impact of the ICT4D project on sustainable rural development using a capability approach
Understanding sustained usage of health and fitness apps
Health and disease
Health as a Theoretical Concept
Creating Capabilities
The politics of behaviour change
The Capability Approach
Self-Tracking for Health and the Quantified Self
The ethics of nudging
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2024 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |