The Internet of Things and Intimate Partner Abuse: Examining Prevalence, Risks, and Outcomes

In this talk, Megan Knittel will begin with a discussion of her recent paper examining prevalence, risk factors, support-seeking, and personal outcomes of Internet of Things (IoT)-mediated intimate partner abuse. The study involved a survey (N=384) using the MTurk platform of adult women living in the United States who self-reported having experienced intimate partner abuse.

The study found that approximately 20% of women reported experiencing adverse behavior from an intimate partner using an IoT device, with the most common perpetration occurring with personal assistant devices and GPS enabled devices. Additionally, it found that Internet use skills and privacy/security behavior did not mitigate experiencing violence or adverse outcomes. Finally, their data suggest that experiencing IoT-mediated abuse predicted more severe personal outcomes than non-IoT mediated abuse. Megan will discuss the implications of these findings for human computer interaction design and information policy.

For the last part of the talk, Megan will also discuss preliminary findings from her dissertation. For this work, Megan is conducting a netnography of online support spaces in conjunction with interviews with survivors to further examine the role of networked homes in experiences of abuse and support-seeking.