Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 16
Posts 1 - 10

Are smartphones really making our children sad?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 13.8.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, threat, youth
Summary | Children's relationship with screens has become a contested topic; not everyone agrees with what should or shouldn't be done. Last week, the Atlantic published an excerpt of Jean Twenge's book (the Atlantic article was titled "Have smartphones destroyed a generation?"), which initiated very diverse reactions. Jean Twenge, who is an American pychologist, said that social media have a negative effect on young people. Twenger then answered some of her critics in this Guardian article.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of teenagers all staring at their phone or tablet.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone, tablet

'My electronic Swiss army knife': readers on 10 years of the iPhone

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 29.6.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | Guardian readers talk about the smartphone/iPhone revolution. They explain their personal experiences with smartphones and digital devices and how they've changed their lives.
Image Description | Photographs of hands using smartphones, an egg, a hand holding a smartphone, and Steve Jobs holding a smartphone.
Image Tags | hand(s), male(s), smartphone

Technology can save lives, not just improve them

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 11.7.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | Much has been said about the negative effects of new technologies. However, technology can save people's life. For instance, Bristol Braille Technology is an enterprise that created a braille electronic reader for blind people. Chatterbox is another tool that was created by a refugee in order to offer language tutoring. Within the "health" category, someone created a wireless sensor that makes physiotherapy exercises more fun, and someone created a tool to improve cancer diagnosis.
Image Description | Photographs of two men using a braille electronic reader, a man and a woman talking, and three women staring at a smartphone.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Want to captivate an audience like Obama? There's an app for that

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 14.7.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | A new app called Orai allows speaker to improve their skills. The app uses artificial intelligence and gives users feedback about their public speaking skills.
Image Description | Portrait of Barack Obama speaking, and three iPhones.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Is it wrong to let my child play on my smartphone?

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 10.8.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, technology-free
Summary | The author of the article sometimes feels guilty when she lets her 2-year old son play on a smartphone. When young children are glued to a screen, they are so captivated by what they're watching. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children younger than 2 should have no exposure to screens; it can hinder their language and social development/skills. The author of the article also claims that her kids already show characteristics of "addicted" behavior. For instance, they scream and are irascible if someone takes their screen away. She also says that what is dangerous is not so much when kids are on screens, but rather when parents are.
Image Description | Photograph of a kid using a smartphone next to an adult.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Young people don't have tribes any more. We have smartphones instead

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 18.3.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | addiction, smartphone, threat
Summary | Every generation had its rebellion (e.g. skinheads, punk, new romantics). What about the millennials? How do they deal with boredom? We have smartphones, and we can do anything with them. The difference between us and the older generations is that we are not "tribal" anymore. We are more "individual".
Image Description | Photograph in black and white of one punk and two other people.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

No power or running water - but digital books galore

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 2.8.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | childhood, digitized education, smartphone
Summary | Inside a library in Rwanda, you can see children with e-readers, smartphones, and digital books. John Kanyambo is 12 and likes digital books; children can learn a lot of new words with them. This is what Africa looks like today; parts of it welcome digital innovations, but other parts haven't had an agricultural revolution yet.
Image Description | Photographs of two African boys using a tablet, two people walking somewhere in Africa, and portrait of an African man.
Image Tags | male(s), tablet

How a Canadian app is helping refugees find food, clean water and medical care

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 16.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, threat
Summary | A new app called Services Advisor was created by Canadian nonprofit PeaceGeeks. The goal of the app is to give refugees basic information about food, shelter, or medical care. The app is available in English and Arabic. A lot of refugees are tech-saavy people and already owned a smartphone before they had to leave their country.
Image Description | Photograph of a group of refugees, and screenshot of the app displaying different categories
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

Tech may rule, but the human backlash is coming

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 24.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone, technology-free, threat
Summary | Movies have a special relationship with new media: they hate it. Romcoms prefer showing people who fall in love while meeting face-to-face rather than on dating apps, sci-fi movies show apocalyptic scenes representing the future, and movies such as "Her" or "Ex Machina" show how artificial intelligence can lead to downfall. Why is the movie industry tech-sceptic? Maybe because the internet is ruining the movie business.
Image Description | Screenshot of a movie scene with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

'Bring your own device': weighing up the business benefits

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 23.1.2017
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | smartphone
Summary | Some businesses let their employees bring their own devices (e.g. laptop) at work. This is called BYOD (Bring your own device). This way, companies can save money, and it's also more convenient for employees to carry one device instead of two. In order to avoid any problems, companies that work with BYOD need to come up with good employee agreements, and use cloud-based services. The article also lists several examples of BYOD companies and explains the (dis)advantages of the method.
Image Description | Portraits of four men, and photograph of people's hands using a tablet, a smartphone, and a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, hand(s), male(s), smartphone, tablet

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