Ethics of mobile applications

Ethics of Mobile Applications

The modern mobile phone has taken a great leap in a very short span of time from its earliest versions, commonly termed then as cellular phones, which functioned only to make calls, send text messages and save contacts on the mobile device. Today, a mobile phone can be used for numerous purposes such as making calls or video calls, text or picture messaging, surfing the internet, acquiring information about the weather forecasts and the latest news, take pictures or make videos, watch movies and other videos, access emails and chat, play music and games and many more other things.

This huge surge of tasks that can be performed on a simple mobile phone has become possible due to the development of smart phones that can provide access to application softwares. It is these applications that make a user of the mobile phone to be able to perform all such tasks. Although applications started off with basic functions relating to contacts, emails, weather information, etc., the increasingly easy access to developer and production tools for mobile phone applications broadened the functionality portfolio and development of applications rapidly into areas such as social media, the global positioning system (GPS), banking, mobile games, and factory automation.

Today, the increasing hype of smart phones, that are dubbed to have brought the access to the world into a mere small piece of technology, has led to the development of thousands of applications, all for various purposes and many different platforms. Anyone can download any type of application for a nominal small fee or completely free of cost from various online application stores and the internet. Moreover, as many application development platforms, softwares and tools have become open sourced, i.e. freely distributed softwares that can be developed by anyone under the condition that developments are put under the same license as that of the original software (Holtgrewe). It has become easier for anyone to create an application and, therefore, anyone can download a huge number of different applications on their phone and use them as they find suiting.

Alike everything that becomes abundantly accessible and available, the debate of the problems and the negative effects becomes more common. Such debates lead to the arguments of the ethical manifestations of these resources. Similarly, the fast paced development, easy access and availability of mobile phone applications has lead to the rise of the debate over the ethical perspectives and issues of using such applications. Ethics relating to the usage of mobile phone applications are more or less similar to those that relate to the usage of mobile phones themselves. The ethics relating to mobile applications has been relatively a new concern. These primarily focus on the invasion of privacy of other people, the manner in which the applications are used and the purposes of such applications in terms of the wider society.

Ethics apply on not just the end user of the application but also on the developers and the providers of all mobile phone applications. These ethics entail the impacts of these applications on personal levels, the immediate environment and the society at large. In terms of the personal impact, having access to numerous applications on your mobile phone can affect the manner of usage of the mobile phone by the user. One of the most common examples is that when a person does not have a social media application or a game on his or her phone, the time spent on the phone is smaller as compared to the increased time spent on the phone due to the availability of a social media application and the game. This increased time consumption on using the application can deviate a person from other real life social commitments, i.e. meeting friends and family members rather than just sending them a message through their application and participating in sports instead of playing games on the phones. In ethical terms, the person is diverting most of his time towards communication through the application rather than utilizing that time for something productive and healthy and/or meeting people in person, giving rise to an ethical social dilemma.

Considering the immediate environment, mobile phone applications can easily impact the surroundings and lead to ethical implications. Some applications cannot be used most of the times without affecting the people around us in a given space. Examples of such applications can be the camera, picture and music applications. A person might play music or take pictures of anyone using their phone, but this can be seen by some people as invasion of their privacy and comfort, thus bringing in the ethical problems that these applications create. Moreover, mobile phone applications definitely have a larger impact on the society.

Although as a benefit for the users of mobile phone applications, developers develop applications that are free of cost for them. Most of these applications create earnings for the developers through the launching of advertisements, but many also require users to allow the application to access internal data on the phone. Sometimes such a requirement for an access can be justified by the fact that some applications, for better functioning, need to access some data sources on the phone. But more and more applications, which do not have any functioning, relating to the involvement of internal private data of the application user, are accessing the data that can be considered as invasion of privacy of an application user (Allamsetty).

Numerous applications of various categories are being developed every day, it has become challenging to keep a tab on these applications that whether they are breaking any privacy laws or not. These applications collect the user's personal data and as a means to earn for the developers, this data is sold to various different companies without the user's knowledge or consent (Fife and Orjuela). This is the biggest drawback of such mobile phone applications and leads to various different ethical concerns other than only the privacy of the user. Moreover, the many applications that have been launched have various arguable side effects, some of them being able to avoid the risk of getting caught while breaking laws. Examples of such an application can be those that using the real-time GPS data allow users to identify the routes which should be avoided so that no one can be caught for over speeding or reckless driving (Wagner).