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This study contributes to ongoing debates on the protection of teens' privacy on social media. While ample research is focused on teens' privacy management, less is known about their attitude toward data protection. Drawing from cross-sectional survey data, this study examines whether predictors of privacy management, namely privacy literacy, privacy concern, and perceptions of data control, also predict teens' attitude toward data protection. Structural equation modeling indicates that all three factors positively predict this facet of privacy. No significant differences were found in the strength of predictors for boys versus girls for privacy management, although the findings do suggest some gender differences for attitude toward data protection that call for further research.

It is a popular belief that humans are the weakest link in cyber-security. However, there has been little research devoted to why people do (or do not) protect themselves and what explains their behaviors. Instead, more attention has been paid to victimization and prevalence of cybercrime. Therefore, we investigate and compare the motivations to protect oneself against scams, malware and cybercrime in general using an adjusted model of the protection motivation theory (PMT), which includes subjective norm, threat and coping awareness. To test this model, different structural equation models (SEM) were used and compared, with each focusing on a specific cybercrime. Our non-random (convenience) sample (n = 1181) is representative for age, residence and gender for the Belgian population. The results show the extended PMT model is a good predictive model to explain people's protection against cybercrime. The findings suggest significant differences when protecting oneself against ‘technical’ cybercrimes (malware), compared to more ‘social’ cybercrimes (scams). The differences are situated on the predictive role of coping, threat awareness and perceived vulnerability. Furthermore, we found subjective norm to be an important predictor in the intention toward protecting against all cybercrimes. Recommendations for further research and awareness campaigns are provided in the discussion.

BACKGROUND Walking disturbances are a common dysfunction in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). The 2-Minute Walking Test (2MWT) is widely used to quantify walking speed. We implemented a smartphone-based 2MWT (s2MWT) in MS sherpa, an app for persons with MS. When performing the s2MWT, users of the app are instructed to walk as fast as safely possible for 2 minutes in the open air, while the app records their movement and calculates the distance walked. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to investigate the concurrent validity and test-retest reliability of the MS sherpa s2MWT. METHODS We performed a validation study on 25 persons with relapsing-remitting MS and 79 healthy control (HC) participants. In the HC group, 21 participants were matched to the persons with MS based on age, gender, and education and these followed the same assessment schedule as the persons with MS (the HC-matched group), whereas 58 participants had a less intense assessment schedule to determine reference values (the HC-normative group). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were determined between the distance measured by the s2MWT and the distance measured using distance markers on the pavement during these s2MWT assessments. ICCs were also determined for test-retest reliability and derived from 10 smartphone tests per study participant, with 3 days in between each test. We interviewed 7 study participants with MS regarding their experiences with the s2MWT. RESULTS In total, 755 s2MWTs were completed. The adherence rate for the persons with MS and the participants in the HC-matched group was 92.4% (425/460). The calculated distance walked on the s2MWT was, on average, 8.43 m or 5% (SD 18.9 m or 11%) higher than the distance measured using distance markers (n=43). An ICC of 0.817 was found for the concurrent validity of the s2MWT in the combined analysis of persons with MS and HC participants. Average ICCs of 9 test-retest reliability analyses of the s2MWT for persons with MS and the participants in the HC-matched group were 0.648 (SD 0.150) and 0.600 (SD 0.090), respectively, whereas the average ICC of 2 test-retest reliability analyses of the s2MWT for the participants in the HC-normative group was 0.700 (SD 0.029). The interviewed study participants found the s2MWT easy to perform, but they also expressed that the test results can be confronting and that a pressure to reach a certain distance can be experienced. CONCLUSIONS The high correlation between s2MWT distance and the conventional 2MWT distance indicates a good concurrent validity. Similarly, high correlations underpin a good test-retest reliability of the s2MWT. We conclude that the s2MWT can be used to measure the distance that the persons with MS walk in 2 minutes outdoors near their home, from which both clinical studies and clinical practice can benefit.

As the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) surged across the globe, new technical solutions have supported policy makers and health authorities to plan and modulate containment measures. The introduction of these solutions provoked a large debate which has focused on risks for privacy and data protection. In this paper we offer an analysis of the available technical approaches and provide new arguments to move beyond the ongoing discussions. In particular, we argue that the past debate missed the opportunity to highlight the societal aspects of privacy and to stimulate a broader reflection on the actions needed to serve the good of society. With this paper, as well as providing an accessible review of the technical and legal aspects of the proposed solutions, we aim to offer new stimuli to reconsider contact tracing and its role in helping countries navigate the current pandemic. Open access funding provided by Università Ca' Foscari Venezia within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. Atia Cortés and Teresa Scantamburlo are supported by the project A European AI On Demand Platform and Ecosystem (AI4EU) H2020-ICT-26 #825619. The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of the consortium AI4EU.

BACKGROUND The decline of cognitive processing speed (CPS) is a common dysfunction in persons with multiple sclerosis (MS). The Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) is widely used to formally quantify CPS. We implemented a variant of the SDMT in MS sherpa, a smartphone app for persons with MS. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the construct validity and test-retest reliability of the MS sherpa smartphone variant of the SDMT (sSDMT). METHODS We performed a validation study with 25 persons with relapsing-remitting MS and 79 healthy control (HC) subjects. In the HC group, 21 subjects were matched to the persons with MS with regard to age, gender, and education and they followed the same assessment schedule as the persons with MS (the “HC matched” group) and 58 subjects had a less intense assessment schedule to determine reference values (the “HC normative” group). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were determined between the paper-and-pencil SDMT and its smartphone variant (sSDMT) on 2 occasions, 4 weeks apart. Other ICCs were determined for test-retest reliability, which were derived from 10 smartphone tests per study participant, with 3 days in between each test. Seven study participants with MS were interviewed regarding their experiences with the sSDMT. RESULTS The SDMT scores were on average 12.06% higher than the sSDMT scores, with a standard deviation of 10.68%. An ICC of 0.838 was found for the construct validity of the sSDMT in the combined analysis of persons with MS and HC subjects. Average ICCs for test-retest reliability of the sSDMT for persons with MS, the HC matched group, and the HC normative group were 0.874, 0.857, and 0.867, respectively. The practice effect was significant between the first and the second test of the persons with MS and the HC matched group and trivial for all other test-retests. The interviewed study participants expressed a positive attitude toward the sSDMT, but they also discussed the importance of adapting a smartphone cognition test in accordance with the needs of the individual persons with MS. CONCLUSIONS The high correlation between sSDMT and the conventional SDMT scores indicates a very good construct validity. Similarly, high correlations underpin a very good test-retest reliability of the sSDMT. We conclude that the sSDMT has the potential to be used as a tool to monitor CPS in persons with MS, both in clinical studies and in clinical practice.

Scholarly work argues that mobile technology facilitates serendipitous news consumption. This article examines how users understand serendipity in mobile news consumption and whether this leads to news diversity. Technology-mediated news encounters are argued to reduce news diversity, yet these theoretical filter bubbles cannot be found empirically. This paper investigates whether this might be explained by incidental news use. A mixed methods study (n = 20) was set-up, which involved interviews, on-device loggings and experience sampling data. Results show that incidental news differs in the level of user agency, ranging from responding to an unsolicited recommendation or alert; via monitoring, facilitated by a previous action (e.g. activated news notifications); to browsing or stumbling upon unexpected topics during news use. Incidental encounters become serendipitous when they provide new information or insights and consequently stick in one’s mind. Based on our findings, we further develop a conceptual model for (mobile) incidental news, which shows the interplay of news recommendations by peers, algorithms, and editors. Editorial recommendations result in topic diversity. Both peer and algorithmic recommendations lead to brand diversity, yet this remains unnoticed to audiences. Peer recommendations mostly do not lead to topic or viewpoint diversity, but are perceived as valuable when they do.

Ample research exists and focuses on teenagers’ understanding of interpersonal privacy on social media. Less is known about younger children’s understanding of privacy and data protection, especially in institutional and commercial data processing contexts. We have spoken to 83 children aged 9–12 years old in two public primary schools in the city of Ghent, Belgium. During the 16 workshops we conducted (which consisted of a focus group stage and a co-design exercise), we discussed children’s everyday (online) activities and practices, their understanding of and views on interpersonal and institutional privacy, the privacy management techniques they use and the rights they have. The findings of our participatory research with young children provide insight into children’s ideas and views about these issues. We report on a number of children’s recommendations on how exactly information about privacy and data protection should be provided to them. The research has the potential to guide and inform both policymaking and the practical design of privacy and data policies by actors who process children’s personal data.

Increasingly, algorithms play an important role in everyday decision-making processes. Recommender systems, specifically, are algorithms that serve to influence end-users’ decision-making (e.g. what to read, who to befriend, who to rent to…). However, the companies that develop and produce these systems are not neutral, but have an economic goal and specific vision on how society should operate. These algorithms should thus never be trusted blindly. An algorithm consists of collective human practices and consequently warm human and institutional choices. Therefore, they should be perceived as culture. Despite the many academics that are joining the debate to denounce the bias, opaqueness and unfairness often found in these algorithms, little empirical research has invested in treating algorithms in its socio-technical assembly as culture. To better understand how end-users perceive these algorithmic systems, we strive to understand how they imagine and (dis)trust the different components of the socio-technical assembly. We are demystifying the imagined processes incorporated in these algorithmic systems in the minds of the end-user using a deconstructed version of Buchers’ (2017) algorithmic imaginary. Currently, companies put ever more effort into personalizing news, using news recommender systems (NRS). NRS organize, select and aggregate news to influence the decision-making of an end-user without a transparent explanation on the process. Therefore, we focus our study on the end-users of these NRS. In this qualitative study, we are interviewing 25 end-users of NRS to understand the assumptions and apprehend the (dis-)trust people have about the different elements of the socio-technical assembly of news recommender systems.

Background Tourette Syndrome (TS) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are heritable neuropsychiatric disorders with a childhood onset. TS is characterized by multiple and involuntary motor tics and at least one vocal tic that persists for more than one year. TS has a prevalence of 0,3-0,8%. OCD is characterized by recurring obsessions and/or compulsions and affects up to 2% of the population. The disorders often co-occur, with their comorbidity ranging between 20–60%. Moreover, there are striking similarities in the phenotypic representation of TS/tics and OCD. Previous studies indicate that TS and OCD may share some common genetic susceptibility factors - with an estimated genetic correlation of 0.41 - but also suggest that there are distinct components to the genetic architectures of the two disorders. Two recent population-based twin sample studies also reported genetic correlations between tics and OCD-related traits (0.37 and 0.45). In this study we further investigated the shared genetic etiology between TS, OCD, and OCD traits as well as tic traits in the general population. Methods We conducted a number of Polygenic Risk Score (PRS)-based analyses. For these analyses, we used the summary statistics data from the Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) of TS and the summary statistics from the meta-analysis of the two GWASs of OCD conducted by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) (unpublished, provided by PGC OCD Working Group) as the 'base' sample. As 'target' samples, we used summary statistics of GWASs of OCD traits and tic traits in the general population. For these GWASs, we used phenotypic and genotyping data from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) cohort obtained from dbGaP (phs000607.v1.p1). To conduct the OCD trait GWASs, we first developed a questionnaire consisting of 22 OCD trait questions and conducted a factor analysis of the questionnaire, to reveal the subsets of OCD traits that group together and may better capture the underlying genetic architecture. We then conducted GWASs of the total score on the 22 OCD trait questions and of six OCD trait factors in 650 children and adolescents from the CHOP cohort. For tic traits, we conducted a GWAS on the total score on 4 tic trait questions in 207 individuals from the CHOP cohort. Results The factor analysis of the 22 OCD trait questions revealed 8 factors that constitute the best fit and explain 58,6% of the variance in the total score on the 22 questions, i.e. 'impairment', 'symmetry/counting/ordering', 'contamination/cleaning', 'aggressive taboo thoughts (tt)', 'repetition', 'guilty tt', 'distress' and 'religious tt'. The PRS-based analyses yielded a significant evidence for shared genetic etiology between OCD and the three OCD traits 'impairment' (1.06% variance explained (ve)), 'contamination/cleaning' (3.54% ve,) and 'guilty taboo thoughts' (5.64% ve). Furthermore, we found significant shared genetic etiology between TS and four OCD traits: 'symmetry/counting/ordering' (3.03% ve), 'contamination/cleaning' (1.28% ve), 'aggressive taboo thoughts' (4.96% ve) and 'distress' (1.83% ve), and between TS and the total score on tic traits (4.78% ve). OCD and TS did not show significant genetic overlap with the total score on the 22 OCD trait questions. Discussion Our findings provide additional and novel evidence that certain OCD traits show genetic overlap with OCD and TS, which adds to our understanding of the genetic risk factors that are shared by and unique to these comorbid disorders.

To control and minimize the spread of COVID-19, various technological solutions have been offered. In this research we focus on digital contact tracing and automated triage for hospitals. We conducted an online survey in Flanders, Belgium (N=1708) to investigate the perceived appropriateness of these systems based on the Contextual Integrity framework, as developed by Nissenbaum (2004). The results for digital contact tracing show significant differences between the appropriateness of using different types of data, with sensitive individual data considered much less appropriate than population data, and between different goals, with goals with a high individual impact considered les appropriate than goals with a low individual impact or societal impact. In addition, the data further shows how the respondents find the usage of digital contact tracing to be less appropriate after the pandemic, underlining the temporality of this technological solution. For automated triage, the results indicate how the usage of gender to determine the priority of patients’ treatments is perceived significantly less appropriate than the other variables, including age. Overall, this study moves beyond a focus on privacy in terms of ‘control’ or ‘secrecy’ and amplifies the voices of citizens and their privacy expectations.