Title: Persuasive Technology For Human Development: Review and Case Study,
Abstract: Technology is an extremely potent tool that can be leveraged for human
development and social good. Owing to the great importance of environment and
human psychology in driving human behavior, and the ubiquity of technology in
modern life, there is a need to leverage the insights and capabilities of both
fields together for nudging people towards a behavior that is optimal in some
sense (personal or social). In this regard, the field of persuasive technology,
which proposes to infuse technology with appropriate design and incentives
using insights from psychology, behavioral economics, and human-computer
interaction holds a lot of promise. Whilst persuasive technology is already
being developed and is at play in many commercial applications, it can have the
great social impact in the field of Information and Communication Technology
for Development (ICTD) which uses Information and Communication Technology
(ICT) for human developmental ends such as education and health. In this paper
we will explore what persuasive technology is and how it can be used for the
ends of human development. To develop the ideas in a concrete setting, we
present a case study outlining how persuasive technology can be used for human
development in Pakistan, a developing South Asian country, that suffers from
many of the problems that plague typical developing country.