[ad_1]
Almost half of those surveyed use the SwissCovid app. The official federal figures speak a different language. Active users: 1.81 million. image: watson
What are app deniers afraid of? New Study on SwissCovid and Co. Provides Answers
Fear of surveillance, lost benefit, or lack of interest – These are some of the reasons why people supposedly don’t install Corona’s warning apps. At least that’s what a survey by researchers in Switzerland, Germany and Austria revealed.
Researchers from ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) surveyed more than 3,000 people in the three German-speaking Alpine countries in September. They examined people’s reservations about smartphone apps that provide information about possible contacts with infected people.
At the time of the survey, 46 percent of Swiss had installed the SwissCovid app, as the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) announced on Thursday. This figure is higher than the installation rate declared by the authorities of around thirty percent of the total population. In Germany (38 percent) and Austria (18 percent) even fewer of the respondents downloaded the app.
What are objectors afraid of?
“Privacy Concerns” they were the most common reason given by the Swiss for not installing the application. A fifth of those surveyed even feared the pandemic was being misused for surveillance. too lack of interest (31 percent), profit not detected (26 percent) or unperceived concern (11 percent) were named.
Study author Caroline Brüesch:
“People who don’t install the app seem to consider their own sensitivity above personal and social benefits.”
What do the proponents say?
Those who installed the contact tracing app cited law enforcement campaigns and media coverage as the most common reasons.
Achim Lang, study co-author:
“People who install the contact tracing app have great trust in the national government, in Switzerland, especially in the Federal Council and in the state health authorities.”
It is said that more men than women tend to download the corresponding contact tracing app. However, as education increases, the likelihood that a person will install the contact tracing app increases.
Recently, two ETH researchers wrote in the trade journal “Science” that governments must do something to ensure that the population trusts corona warning applications. The apps would only be useful if enough people were using them – according to an Oxford University study, that would be 60 percent of the population.
It should be noted here that experts such as the Swiss epidemiologist Marcel Salathé, one of the SwissCovid developers, emphasize that the application is useful even earlier. Every chain of infection that is broken contributes to success.
Individual responses show that parts of the population do not understand the new technology that makes it possible to stop the chains of infection through a smartphone app. graphics: zhaw
Those
(dsc / sda)
