Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 15
Posts 1 - 10

Now anyone can build their own version of Microsoft's racist, sexist chatbot Tay

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 31.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, social media
Summary | Microsoft now lets people build their own chatbots. Bots are the new app, and developers will soon be able to create bots that respond to chat messages. Big tech companies are now trying to build their own bots (e.g. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Slack, Microsoft).
Image Description | Digital image of a smartphone screen displaying a female face (Tay).
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

Girls gang up on boys in new cyberbullying craze called 'roasting', expert warns

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 25.7.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, cyberbullying, gender, social media, texting, threat, youth
Summary | "Roasting" is a new cyberbullying craze where girls pick on boys on WhatsApp, Instagram, or Facebook until they crack. Teenage girls and boys have already killed themselves because of cyberbullying.
Image Description | Photograph of three young girls using and staring at their smartphone
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

Are teenagers having less sex – and is social media the reason why?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 10.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | addiction, research/study, social media, youth
Summary | Teenagers are having less sex; is it because of new media? One theory says that it might be because young people spend more time in their bedroom in front of their screen and less time socializing and getting drunk with friends. The drop in teenage pregnancies is also accompanied by a drop in teenage drinking levels. A US report claims that teenagers spend 9 hours each day on social media, and kids between 8 and 12 spend 6 hours online each day. Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, and they even coined the word 'sekkusu shinai shokogun' which means “celibacy syndrome”.
Image Description | Photographs of a boy looking at a tablet, girl wearing sunglasses (we can see the Facebook logo in the reflection), two girls sitting back to back using their smartphone, classroom with students and teacher
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), headphones, male(s), smartphone, tablet

Rise of the defrienders: Nine in ten young people have been 'ghosted' by their friend or partner

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 6.5.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, social media, texting, youth
Summary | “Ghosting” or defriending someone by text or social media is a new phenomenon. It seems that young people prefer using their smartphones and laptops to end relationships instead of doing it face-to-face. The term "ghosting" came from Katy Perry's song "Ghost" where she talks about ex-husband Russell Brand who had not spoken to her after demanding a divorce via text. Thanks to social media and the fact that you can hide behind your phone it is now easier to defriend people by ghosting.
Image Description | Photographs of two hands holding a smartphone, Russell Brand and Katy Perry, a man using his phone and looking at it, a hand holding a smartphone displaying the Facebook icon.
Image Tags | Facebook, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone

'Snowden' filmmaker Oliver Stone warns Pokemon Go is creating a totalitarian world filled with robot-like people

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 22.7.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | game, privacy, smartphone, social media, threat, virtual reality
Summary | The game Pokemon Go has become so popular that it has overtaken major social media in number of active users. Oliver Stone spoke about the smartphone phenomenon as 'a new level of invasion' that could potentially lead to totalitarianism and a culture of surveillance. Internet giants are tracking everyone's online behavior, especially through the game Pokemon Go.
Image Description | Photograph of Oliver Stone, photograph of three male children looking at their smartphone, photograph of actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and photograph of Edward Snowden
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Es postet, also bin ich

(It posts so I am)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 19.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, emojis, language threat, selfie, social media
Summary | In his new book called "Facebook generation", Roberto Simanowski positions himself between the cultural pessimists and the digital euphorics. He does fear for our language competence and tied to it our memory. We tend to posts selfies and emojis rather than put our feelings into words. We tend to post a link to a song, a video, or an article rather than paraphrase that information make our point in an original sentence. This leads to the degeneration of our language ability and that inability to process information in our own words prevents the creation of memories. Instead we leave a huge digital data trail online.
Image Description | Woman's hands holding a smartphone while using a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), hand(s), smartphone

Die Jungs von heute können einfach nicht mehr flirten

(The boys of today just can't flirt anymore)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.7.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | online dating, research/study, smartphone, social media, youth
Summary | Young people nowadays cannot flirt anymore. They are constantly tied to their smartphones - 57 hours per week a recent study says - and do not pay attention to what is going on around them. They are more comfortable communicating via a medium than face-to-face. Many girls lament on social media how there are no available boys. Young boys should look up form their phones more often - the girls would be grateful.
Image Description | Getty images of young men and women with and without smartphones.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Welcome to Twitter city: is there no limit to Jakarta's social media obsession?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 21.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | Facebook, social media, Twitter
Summary | A Parisian study found that the city with the most active Twitter users is Jakarta. The city with 10 million residents is said to retain the mentality of a village through the extensive use of social media. Because of Indonesia's history of corrupt politicians and frequent natural as well as anthropogenic catastrophes, Indonesians have developed an unbreakable sense of humor in the face of terrifying news. Especially since the end of a dictatorship which censored free speech, Indonesians are excessively going to social media to post memes and otherwise poke fun at politicians.
Image Description | Getty image of many people on their smartphones in Jakarta, a satirical cartoon, as well as a few internet memes featuring politicians as well as Isis leaders.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), meme, smartphone

That time when ‘that time when’ took over the Internet #InstantNostalgia

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Newspaper | Washington Post
Date | 15.9.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | hashtags, research/study, social media
Summary | It has become customary to frame anecdotal posts on social media with the phrase "that time when" or "that akward moment when". Sometimes it is even used to describe events that have just happened, even though it is a formulation that suggests an old memory. This linguistic strategy thereby creates an air of nostalgia around the memory and makes it iconic. Linguists suggest that the usage of the demonstrative "that" suggests that sender and receiver of the message have shared memories. This is why many celebrities use this construction to create a false sense of intimacy with their fans online.
Image Description | GIF of a woman taking a selfie and posting it to social media.
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, smartphone, social media

Pling, Pling, Doppel-Pling

(Ding, Ding, Double-Ding)

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Newspaper | Süddeutsche Zeitung
Date | 30.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | addiction, smartphone, social media, WhatsApp, youth, YouTube
Summary | A day in the life of a 13 year old who receives 200 messages a day. Lina uses her smartphone first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Though her father does not necessarily like her constant use of the smartphone and the notifications all the time, he is not worried about an addicion. Parents were taught about the risks on parent-teacher meetings. Lina is in a ton of group chats and is beginning to use Musical.ly. YouTube is a staple entertainment source for her.
Image Description | Lina with the smartphone on her bed and a hand holding a smartphone.
Image Tags | female(s), hand(s), smartphone

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