The spy in your pocket
Students will answer questions about how smartphone apps could be used to spy on people and how such spying might be prevented.
Educator Guide: Smartphones Overshare
OVERSHARING Before personal devices reveal too much about what you’re up to, researchers are trying to build in user protections — or at least call attention to vulnerabilities.
MUSTAFAHACALAKI/ISTOCKPHOTO
About this guide
The article “Smartphones overshare” describes how apps that access various sensors in smartphones could be used to spy on people by collecting data without a person’s knowledge or consent. Students can focus on information and graphs reported in the article, follow connections to earlier articles about smartphones and pursue cross-curricular connections by exploring smartphone technology such as the sensors and the liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen. In a related activity, students can explore light polarization and the LCD technology used to illuminate smartphone screens. If the resources are available, students may use smartphones to collect a variety of sensor data from apps of their choice.
This Guide Includes:
Good and bad of smartphones
Students will search the Science News archive for stories related to the powers and perils of smartphone use.
A look inside the smartphone
These discussion prompts ask students to describe how various smartphone sensors work, and analyze three graphs related to data gathered by such sensors.
Smartphone technologies
In this two-part activity, students will complete a few simple light polarization exercises to model LCD technology and then demonstrate how a smartphone app analyzes and utilizes data to perform a specific function.