A First Look at Human Values-Violation in App Reviews

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 22,000 mobile app reviews to detect human value violations, revealing that a significant portion of users perceive violations, especially in benevolence and self-direction, emphasizing the importance of aligning app development with human values.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using NLP to detect human value violations in app reviews based on Schwartz's human values model, providing insights into user-perceived ethical issues.

Findings

26.5% of reviews indicated perceived value violations

Benevolence and self-direction are most violated

Conformity and tradition are least violated

Abstract

Ubiquitous technologies such as mobile software applications (mobile apps) have a tremendous influence on the evolution of the social, cultural, economic, and political facets of life in society. Mobile apps fulfil many practical purposes for users including entertainment, transportation, financial management, etc. Given the ubiquity of mobile apps in the lives of individuals and the consequent effect of these technologies on society, it is essential to consider the relationship between human values and the development and deployment of mobile apps. The many negative consequences of violating human values such as privacy, fairness or social justice by technology have been documented in recent times. If we can detect these violations in a timely manner, developers can look to better address them. To understand the violation of human values in a range of common mobile apps, we analysed 22,119 app reviews from Google Play Store using natural language processing techniques. We base our values violation detection approach on a widely accepted model of human values; the Schwartz theory of basic human values. The results of our analysis show that 26.5% of the reviews contained text indicating user perceived violations of human values. We found that benevolence and self-direction were the most violated value categories, and conformity and tradition were the least violated categories. Our results also highlight the need for a proactive approach to the alignment of values amongst stakeholders and the use of app reviews as a valuable additional source for mining values requirements.