Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 10
Posts 1 - 10

At C.D.C., a Debate Behind Recommendations on Cellphone Risk

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 1.1.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, brain, childhood, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | A controversy has sparked over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's health recommendation regarding cell phones. They had reviewed research on brain tumor risk connected with cell phone use and decided that the data were not convincing enough. Their recommendation was that cell phone users need not be more cautious with cell phones than other daily lifestyle choices. However, the research is also not extensive enough to disprove an increased risk of brain tumor with high rates of cell phone use, especially for children. In response to the backlash to this recommendation, their stance was revised a few times so that it now states that the C.D.C. does not recommend caution but other organizations do.
Image Description | Reuters image of a crowd and one man speaking on the smartphone.
Image Tags | male(s), smartphone

Ruhe, bitte!

(Silence, please!)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 26.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, research/study, smartphone, threat
Summary | New technology is likely contributing to insomnia. One third of adults suffer insomnia. All our internet devices make it difficult for us to let go of what is happening in the world because we can access it at all times. Sleep experts advise people who suffer from insomnia to stop looking at notifications before one goes to sleep and to ban all electronic devices from the bedroom.
Image Description | Image of a woman sleeping on a skyscraper and images of men (experts) mentioned in the article.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

So gewaltig wie die Erfindung der Schrift

(As huge as the invention of writing)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 21.6.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, artificial intelligence, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, marketing, politics, threat
Summary | The digitalization is the most significant development of our time. Created for the democratization of information, it can however also be used for the opposite. The Chinese government are already using the internet as a means to survey their citizens and assess their loyalty. Artificial intelligence technologies are in place to calculate the shortest way to your destination, predict crimes, predict illnesses and cancer risks, as well as what book you will buy next. Amazon sends customers unsolicited products because the loss of having to return the product by mail is smaller than the profit of the customer keeping the well suggested item. Facebook has been created to connect people within a community but the platform cannot battle the hate language and cyberbullying to the extent that it influences presidential elections.
Image Description | Heisenberg media image of the author at a public speaking event with another man.
Image Tags | male(s)

Hinter dem Hashtag #BlauerWal steckt eine verstörende Geschichte

(A disturbing story hides behind the hashtag #BlueWhale)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 18.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, hashtags, law, social media, threat, youth
Summary | Currently, a man is on trial in Russian courts for supposedly urging 15 teenagers to commit suicide. The case is connected to the #BlueWhale challenge that is said to circulate online on social media. It is a lethal game where one person gives another increasingly self-destructive tasks. Apparently, psychologically fragile teenagers are targeted online.
Image Description | Getty image of a blue whale and images of a man being arrested and in trial with his face pixellated.
Image Tags | male(s)

Elf neue Wörter, die wir dringend brauchen

(Eleven new words that we need urgently)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 1.9.2016
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | (mental) health, smartphone, word/writing
Summary | Our language cannot keep up with technological innovations and other changes. There are dozens of new scenarios that have no name and urgently need one. For instance the shame parents feel when their children join an idiotic fad like Pokémon Go or the neck deformation our generation will have from staring at a smartphone all our lives. Another discrepancy is that we have no catchy name for involuntary images taken of floors or the insides of our pockets. We also new words to describe intersex people or stretched out ears after a lifetime of ear-gaging.
Image Description | Getty Images of a woman with ear gages and a transgender person.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, female(s), male(s), smartphone

E-Mails für verzweifelte Teenager

(Emails for desperate teenagers)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 13.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, email, Facebook, youth
Summary | The volunteer project U25 provides peer counseling for suicidal teenagers. All volunteers at U25 are between 17 and 25 years old and they get extensive training before they are given up to three cases at a time. They exchange emails with the suicidal peers trying to counsel them into psychological stability. The volunteer counselors are not allowed to give out their cell phone numbers or befriend clients on Facebook for their own protection.
Image Description | Image of one volunteer counselor with a laptop.
Image Tags | computer/laptop, male(s), TV

Einfach mal abschalten

(Just turn it off for a little)

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Newspaper | die Weltwoche
Date | 27.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, childhood, smartphone, threat
Summary | Lots of adults are virtually tied to their smartphones, even when crossing the street. The children, naturally, imitate this and for the "head-down generation". One cannot blame the children for becoming addicted to smartphones because they can only form into what they learn from their parents. No wonder that we are dealing with epidemic-like amounts of ADHD diagnoses: children are tranquilized with screens and later the developmental tolls of this are treated with drugs.
Image Description | A collage-like illustration of parents drifting off into the ocean on rafts made of giant smartphones and the children left behind on an island.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s), smartphone

Es flitzt der Rollstuhl

(The bolting wheelchair )

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 16.1.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, diversity, emojis
Summary | A German organization for the inclusion of people with disabilities into public life is offering a set of Inklumojis: emojis that depict people with disabilities. These include a man in a wheelchair with fire shooting out of the back suggesting speed, athletes with leg prosthetics, a romantic couple holding hands, one of them with a prosthetic arm, and many more. Emojis can normalize people with disabilities much easier than big advertising campaigns which is why they will attempt to have their emojis included by the Unicode Consortium.
Image Description | Emojis of people with diabilities.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), male(s)

Der Mann zieht seine Nummer ab

(A man takes off his number)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 14.8.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, addiction, research/study, smartphone, technology-free
Summary | A 29-year old man has decided to live without a cell phone because it causes anxiety and is not as necessary as everybody thinks. Recent studies have shown that many smartphone users can effectively be labeled as addicts because they check their phones more than 60 times a day. This obsession, paired with the fact that push notifications effect the release of dopamine, confirm the claim that smartphones increase anxiety.
Image Description | Photograph of the 29-year old man, crouching.
Image Tags | male(s)

WhatsAppitis

(WhatsAppitis)

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Newspaper | Appenzeller Zeitung
Date | 15.4.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | (mental) health, texting, WhatsApp
Summary | A myriad of new illnesses named after new technologies are reported in the media and in scientific journals. WhatsAppitis, for instance, is the tendinitis of the thumb. There is also the so-called text-neck and many other more or less serious neologisms like that.
Image Description | Photograph of the author Peter Abegglen.
Image Tags | male(s)

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