Ethical Considerations of AR Applications in Smartphones; A Systematic Literature Review of Consumer Perspectives

TL;DR

This systematic review explores consumer perceptions of ethical issues in smartphone AR applications, highlighting benefits like personalization and interactivity, and concerns such as privacy and transparency, to guide responsible development and deployment.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of consumer ethical perceptions in mobile AR, informing developers and marketers on addressing ethical considerations effectively.

Findings

Consumers value personalization, interactivity, and information in AR.

Privacy, transparency, and security are key ethical concerns.

Consumers perceive benefits and ethical issues as interconnected.

Abstract

This study focuses on the ethical considerations that a consumer perceives with augmented reality (AR) in the context of smartphone applications. Through a systematic review, this research can provide an understanding and ability for developers, product managers, digital marketers and associated business professionals to effectively implement and deploy mobile AR related applications and campaigns, with consideration to the perceptions of the ethical considerations that consumers have of this growing technology. The rise in digital transformation and new technologies paved this research agenda. Trends in the data revealed two overarching factors of 'Benefits' and 'Ethical Considerations'. Within these two factors, several consumer perceived themes were identified with regards to AR applications and their association categorised either positive, negative or neutral. 'Benefits' revealed 3 consistent themes of personalisation, interactivity and information acquisition. 'Ethical Considerations' revealed consistent patterns of educational awareness, privacy, transparency and security. From identifying the consumer perceptions, business professionals can strategically address and or challenge the inherent limitations and their associations during AR application development, product adoption strategies or marketing purposes.