Popularity of 'gamified' apps raises new legal issues, student researchers warn
Popularity of 'gamified' apps raises new legal issues, student researchers warn
Popularity of 'gamified' apps raises new legal issues, student researchers warn
April 5,2022
By Nina Haikara
Summary
What are the implications of these gamified apps on human behaviour and the law?
Law students in the University of Toronto's Future of Law Lab explore these questions in a new research report that focuses on how current laws should respond to gamification - the introduction of elements of play and gaming across activities and aspects of life.
"My research interest is in securities law, so gamification really captured my attention with the whole meme stock craze, and speculation about how online trading apps might have fed into it," says Doug Sarro, a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law.
"By gamifying investing, did online trading apps lead their users to trade too frequently in assets that were too risky for them? I looked around and saw gamification raises issues in other areas of law, too. For instance, when ridesharing apps use gamification to influence when and where drivers work, does this mean these drivers ought to be considered employees rather than independent contractors?".
First-year law student Nikée Allen, who has a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in sociology from Ryerson University, looked at how dating apps can internalize and propagate racial biases among users.
Fellow first-year law student Samir Reynolds, for his part, studied the design techniques of ride-sharing apps.
"The Future of Law Lab provides students with an opportunity to learn about legal problems from a holistic perspective. Law does not exist in a vacuum and, in our context, legal problems are often business problems," says lab director Joshua Morrison, a lawyer and graduate of the faculty's global professional master of laws program with a concentration in innovation, law and technology.
Reference
Haikara, N. (2022, April 5). Popularity of 'gamified' apps raises new legal issues, student researchers warn. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from https://www.utoronto.ca/news/popularity-gamified-apps-raises-new-legal-issues-student-researchers-warn